View source for Maria Callas

{{Short description|American-born Greek soprano (1923–1977)}}
{{Redirect|Callas}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=November 2022}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Maria Callas
| honorific_suffix = [[Order of Merit of the Italian Republic|Commendatore OMRI]]
| image = Maria Callas 1958.jpg
| caption = Callas in 1958
| birth_name = Maria Anna Cecilia Sophia Kalogeropoulos
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1923|12|2}}
| birth_place = [[New York City]], U.S.
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1977|9|16|1923|12|2}}
| death_place = [[Paris]], France
| citizenship        = {{ubl
  | Greece <ref>https://www.nytimes.com/1966/04/07/archives/callas-drops-us-citizenship-says-action-nullifies-marriage-opera.html</ref>
  | United States (until 1966)
  | Italy
  }}
| resting_place =   [[Aegean Sea]], Greece<ref name="auto">{{Cite web|url=https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/|title=GREECE: ASHES OF OPERA SINGER MARIA CALLAS TAKEN ON BOAT TO BE SCATTERED AT SEA.|website=British Pathé}}</ref> (Initially   [[Père Lachaise Cemetery]], Paris)
| education = [[Athens Conservatoire]]<br/>[[George Washington Educational Campus]]
| occupation = Opera singer
| awards = [[Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award]]
| spouse = {{marriage|Giovanni Battista Meneghini|1949|1959|end=divorced}}
| partner = [[Aristotle Onassis]] (1959–1968)
}}

'''Maria Callas'''{{efn|1=Pronunciation: {{IPAc-en|ˈ|k|æ|l|ə|s}} {{respell|KAL|əs}}, {{IPAc-en|USalso|ˈ|k|ɑː|l|ə|s}} {{respell|KAH|ləs}}; {{langx|el|Μαρία Κάλλας|María Kállas}}, {{IPA|el|maˈri.a ˈkalas|IPA}}.}} {{post-nominals|post-noms=[[Order of Merit of the Italian Republic|Commendatore OMRI]]}}{{sfn|Jellinek|1986|page=[https://archive.org/details/callasportraitof0000jell/page/186 186]}} (born '''Maria Anna Cecilia Sophia Kalogeropoulos''';{{efn|{{langx|el|Μαρία Άννα Καικιλία Σοφία Καλογεροπούλου|María Ánna Kaikilía Sophía Kalogeropoúlou}}, {{IPA|el|maˈri.a ˈana ceciˈli.a soˈfi.a kaloʝeroˈpulu|IPA}}.}} December 2, 1923&nbsp;– September 16, 1977) was an American-born Greek [[soprano]]<ref>[https://newspaperarchive.com/charleston-daily-mail-apr-06-1966-p-1/ "Maria Callas Abandons US Citizenship"], ''[[Charleston Daily Mail]]'', April 6, 1966, via [[NewspaperArchive]]</ref> and one of the most renowned and influential opera singers of the 20th century. Many critics praised her ''[[bel canto]]'' technique, wide-ranging voice and dramatic interpretations. Her repertoire ranged from classical ''[[opera seria]]'' to the ''bel canto'' operas of [[Donizetti]], [[Vincenzo Bellini|Bellini]], and [[Rossini]], and further to the works of [[Verdi]] and [[Puccini]], and in her early career to the music dramas of [[Wagner]]. Her musical and dramatic talents led to her being hailed as ''La Divina'' ("The Divine One").

Born in [[Manhattan]] and raised in [[Astoria, Queens]], [[New York City]], to Greek immigrant parents, she was raised by an overbearing mother who had wanted a son. Maria received her musical education in Greece at age 13 and later established her career in Italy. Forced to deal with the exigencies of 1940s wartime poverty and with near-sightedness that left her nearly blind on stage, she endured struggles and scandal over the course of her career. She underwent a mid-career weight loss, which might have contributed to her vocal decline and the premature end of her career.

The press exulted in publicizing Callas's temperamental behavior, the alleged Callas–[[Renata Tebaldi|Tebaldi]] rivalry, and her love affair with Greek shipping tycoon [[Aristotle Onassis]]. Onassis's wife, [[Tina Onassis Niarchos|Athina "Tina" Onassis Niarchos]], divorced him when she discovered that he was having an affair with Callas.<ref>{{cite book |last=Feroudi Moutsatsos |first=Kiki |url=https://archive.org/details/onassiswomeney00mout |title=The Onassis Women |publisher=[[G. P. Putnam's Sons|Putnam]] |year=1998 |isbn=0399144439 |location=London |url-access=registration}}</ref><ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Gage |first=Nicholas |date=2008-04-30 |title=The Last Onassis |url=https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2005/05/athina200505#:~:text=Their%20mother,%20born%20Athina%20Livanos,after%20his%20son's%20fatal%20crash. |access-date=2025-04-06 |magazine=Vanity Fair |language=en-US}}</ref> 

Although her dramatic life and personal tragedy have often overshadowed Callas the artist in the popular press, her artistic achievements were such that [[Leonard Bernstein]] called her "the Bible of opera",<ref>"PBS tribute to Callas on the Anniversary of her Death", introduction by [[Leonard Bernstein]], 1983.</ref> and her influence so enduring that, in 2006, ''[[Opera News]]'' wrote of her: "Nearly thirty years after her death, she's still the definition of the diva as artist—and still one of classical music's best-selling vocalists."<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Driscoll|first1=F. Paul|first2=Brian|last2=Kellow|title=The 25 Most Powerful Names in U.S. Opera|journal=[[Opera News]]|date=August 2006|url=https://www.operanews.com/operanews/issue/article.aspx?id=1755|volume=71|issue=H2|access-date=December 14, 2018|archive-date=December 16, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181216034241/https://www.operanews.com/operanews/issue/article.aspx?id=1755|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Her ashes were scattered over the Aegean Sea on 3 June 1979, fulfilling one of her last wishes.<ref name="auto"/><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.lemonde.fr/en/culture/article/2023/12/02/singer-maria-callas-in-greece-years-of-trauma-and-triumph_6307478_30.html|title=Singer Maria Callas in Greece: Years of trauma and triumph|date=December 2, 2023|via=Le Monde}}</ref>

== Early life and education ==
=== Family life, childhood and move to Greece ===
[[File:Kallas House.JPG|thumb|upright|The apartment house in Athens where Callas lived from 1937 to 1945]]
The name on Callas's New York birth certificate is Sophie Cecilia Kalos,{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|page=35}} although she was christened Maria Anna Cecilia Sophia Kalogeropoulou ({{langx|el|Μαρία Άννα Καικιλία Σοφία Καλογεροπούλου|links=no}}).{{sfn|Jellinek|1986|page=[https://archive.org/details/callasportraitof0000jell/page/4 4]}} She was born at [[Flower Fifth Avenue Hospital]] (now the Terence Cardinal Cooke Health Care Center) on December 2, 1923, to Greek parents Elmina Evangelia "Litsa" ({{née|Demes}}, originally Dimitriadou; {{c.|1894}}–1982) and George Kalogeropoulos ({{c.|1881|lk=no}}–1972). Callas's father had shortened the surname Kalogeropoulos, first to Kalos and subsequently to Callas to make it more manageable.{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|page=36}}

George and Litsa Callas were an ill-matched couple from the beginning. George was easy-going and unambitious, with no interest in the arts, and Litsa was vivacious and socially ambitious and had dreamed of a life in the arts, which her middle-class parents had stifled in her childhood and youth.{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|page=27}} Litsa's father, Petros Dimitriadis (1852–1916), was in failing health when Litsa introduced George to her family. Petros, distrustful of George, warned his daughter, "You will never be happy with him. If you marry that man, I will never be able to help you." Litsa ignored his warning but soon realized that her father was right.{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|pp=27–30}} The situation was aggravated by George's philandering and was improved neither by the birth of their daughter Yakinthi (later called "Jackie"), in 1917, nor the birth of their son Vassilis, in 1920. Vassilis's death from [[meningitis]] in the summer of 1922 dealt another blow to the marriage.

In 1923, after realizing that Litsa was pregnant again, George moved his family to the United States, a decision that Yakinthi recalled was greeted with Litsa "shouting hysterically" followed by George "slamming doors".{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|page=32}} The family left for New York in July 1923, moving first into an apartment in the heavily immigrant neighborhood of [[Astoria, Queens]].{{Citation needed|date=September 2024}}

Litsa was convinced that her third child would be a boy, and her disappointment at the birth of another daughter was so great that she refused even to look at her new baby for four days.{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|page=35}} Maria was christened three years later, in 1926, at the [[Archdiocesan Cathedral of the Holy Trinity]].{{sfnm|Jellinek|1986|1p=4|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|2pp=36–37}} When Maria was four, George Callas opened his own pharmacy, settling the family in Manhattan on 192nd Street in [[Washington Heights, Manhattan|Washington Heights]], where Callas grew up. Around the age of three, Maria's musical talent began to manifest itself, and after Litsa discovered that her younger daughter also had a voice, she began pressing "Mary" to sing. Callas later recalled, "I was made to sing when I was only five, and I hated it."{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|page=40}} George was unhappy with his wife favoring their elder daughter, as well as the pressure put upon young Mary to sing and perform,<ref name="stassinopoulos">{{cite book|last=Stassinopoulos|first=Ariana|author-link=Arianna Stassinopoulos|title=Maria Callas: The Woman Behind the Legend|publisher=Simon and Schuster|location=New York|year=1981|isbn=978-0-671-25583-1|url=https://archive.org/details/mariacallaswoman00stas}}</ref> and Litsa was increasingly embittered with George and his absences and infidelity and often violently reviled him in front of their children.{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|page=41-42, 74–75}} The marriage continued to deteriorate, and in 1937 Litsa returned to Athens with her two daughters.{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|p=75-76}}

=== Relationship with mother ===
Callas's relationship with her mother continued to erode during the years in Greece, and in the prime of her career it became a matter of great public interest, especially after a 1956 cover story in [[Time (magazine)|''Time'' magazine]], which focused on their relationship, and later by Litsa's book, ''My Daughter Maria Callas'' (1960). In public, Callas recalls the strained relationship with Litsa and her unhappy childhood spent singing and working at her mother's insistence, saying,
<blockquote>My sister was slim and beautiful and friendly, and my mother always preferred her. I was the ugly duckling, fat and clumsy and unpopular. It is a cruel thing to make a child feel ugly and unwanted&nbsp;... I'll never forgive her for taking my childhood away. During all the years, I should have been playing and growing up, I was singing or making money. Everything I did for them was mostly good and everything they did to me was mostly bad.<ref name="Time 1956">{{citation|url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/printout/0,8816,867205,00.html|title=The Prima Donna|magazine=Time|date=October 29, 1956|volume=68|issue=18}} See also [https://content.time.com/time/magazine/0,9263,7601561029,00.html the cover].</ref></blockquote>

In 1957, she told Chicago radio host Norman Ross Jr, "There must be a law against forcing children to perform at an early age. Children should have a wonderful childhood. They should not be given too much responsibility."{{sfn|Jellinek|1986|page=[https://archive.org/details/callasportraitof0000jell/page/316 316]}}

Biographer Nicholas Petsalis-Diomidis says that Litsa's hateful treatment of George in front of their young children led to resentment and dislike on Callas's part.{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|pp=37–38, 62, 75–76}} According to both Callas's husband and her close friend [[Giulietta Simionato]], Callas related to them that her mother, who did not work, pressed her to "go out with various men", mainly Italian and German soldiers, to bring home money and food during the [[Axis occupation of Greece]] during World War II. Simionato was convinced that Callas "managed to remain untouched" but never forgave her mother for what she perceived as a kind of prostitution forced on her.{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|pp=241–247}} Litsa, beginning in New York and continuing in Athens, had adopted a questionable lifestyle that included not only pushing her daughters into degrading situations to support her financially but also entertaining Italian and German soldiers during the Axis occupation.{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|pp=75, 108–121, 242–247}}

In an attempt to patch things up with her mother, Callas took Litsa along on her first visit to Mexico in 1950, but this only reawakened the old frictions and resentments, and after leaving Mexico, they never met again. After a series of angry and accusatory letters from Litsa lambasting Callas's father and husband, Callas ceased communication with her mother altogether.<ref name="scott" />

A 1955 ''Time'' magazine story<ref name="Time 19562">{{citation |title=The Prima Donna |date=October 29, 1956 |url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/printout/0,8816,867205,00.html |magazine=Time |volume=68 |issue=18}} See also [https://content.time.com/time/magazine/0,9263,7601561029,00.html the cover].</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite magazine |title=Time Magazine Cover: Maria Callas – Oct. 29, 1956 |url=https://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19561029,00.html |access-date=April 30, 2022 |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |language=en-us}}</ref><ref name="Music: The Prima Donna">{{Cite magazine |date=October 29, 1956 |title=Music: The Prima Donna |language=en-US |magazine=Time |url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,867205,00.html |access-date=April 30, 2022 |issn=0040-781X}}</ref> covered Callas's response to her mother's request for $100, "for my daily bread." Callas had replied, "Don't come to us with your troubles. I had to work for my money, and you are young enough to work, too. If you can't make enough money to live on, you can jump out of the window or drown yourself." Callas justified her behavior&nbsp;... "They say my family is very short of money. Before God, I say why should they blame me? I feel no guilt and I feel no gratitude. I like to show kindness, but you mustn't expect thanks, because you won't get any. That's the way life is. If some day I need help, I wouldn't expect anything from anybody. When I'm old, nobody is going to worry about me."<ref name=":0" />

=== Education ===
Callas received her musical education in Athens. Initially, her mother tried to enroll her at the prestigious [[Athens Conservatoire]], without success. At the audition, her voice, still untrained, failed to impress, and the conservatoire's director [https://virtualmuseum.nationalopera.gr/en/virtual-exhibition/persons/oikonomidis-filoktitis-2042/ Filoktitis Oikonomidis] refused to accept her without her satisfying the theoretic prerequisites ([[Solfège|solfege]]). In the summer of 1937, her mother visited Maria Trivella at the younger [[National Conservatoire (Greece)|Greek National Conservatoire]], asking her to take Mary, as she was then called, as a student for a modest fee. In 1957, Trivella recalled her impression of "Mary, a very plump young girl, wearing big glasses for her myopia":
<blockquote>The tone of the voice was warm, lyrical, intense; it swirled and flared like a flame and filled the air with melodious reverberations like a [[carillon]]. It was by any standards an amazing phenomenon, or rather it was a great talent that needed control, technical training and strict discipline in order to shine with all its brilliance.{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|p={{Page needed|date=September 2018}}}}</blockquote>

Trivella agreed to tutor Callas, completely waiving her tuition fees, but no sooner had Callas started her formal lessons and vocal exercises than Trivella began to feel that Callas was not a [[contralto]], as she had been told, but a [[dramatic soprano]]. Subsequently, they began working on raising the [[tessitura]] of her voice and to lighten its [[timbre]].{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|p={{Page needed|date=September 2018}}}} Trivella recalled Callas as
<blockquote>A model student. Fanatical, uncompromising, dedicated to her studies heart and soul. Her progress was phenomenal. She studied five or six hours a day.&nbsp;... Within six months, she was singing the most difficult arias in the international opera repertoire with the utmost musicality.{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|p={{Page needed|date=September 2018}}}}</blockquote>
On April 11, 1938, in her public debut, Callas ended the recital of Trivella's class at the Parnassos music hall with a [[duet]] from ''[[Tosca]]''.{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|p={{Page needed|date=September 2018}}}} Callas recalled that Trivella
<blockquote>had a French method, which was placing the voice in the nose, rather nasal&nbsp;... and I had the problem of not having low [[Chest voice|chest tones]], which is essential in ''[[bel canto]]''&nbsp;... And that's where I learned my chest tones.<ref name="harewoodparis">Interview with [[George Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood|Lord Harewood]], Paris, 1968. Complete audio recording of the interview, including portions not released on DVD, ''The Callas Edition'', on 3 CDs.</ref></blockquote>

However, when interviewed by Pierre Desgraupes on the French program ''L'invitée du dimanche'', Callas attributed the development of her chest voice not to Trivella but to her next teacher, the Spanish [[coloratura soprano]] [[Elvira de Hidalgo]].<ref name="Pierre Desgraupes 1968">"L'invitée du dimanche" hosted by Pierre Desgraupes, 1968, released on ''The Callas Conversations, Vol. 2'' [DVD] 2007, EMI Classics</ref>

Callas studied with Trivella for two years before her mother secured another audition at the Athens Conservatoire, with de Hidalgo. Callas auditioned with "Ocean, Thou Mighty Monster" from [[Carl Maria von Weber|Weber's]] ''[[Oberon (Weber)|Oberon]]''. De Hidalgo recalled hearing "tempestuous, extravagant cascades of sounds, as yet uncontrolled but full of drama and emotion".{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|p={{Page needed|date=September 2018}}}} She agreed to take her as a pupil immediately, but Callas's mother asked de Hidalgo to wait for a year, as Callas would be graduating from the National Conservatoire and could begin working. On April 2, 1939, Callas undertook the part of Santuzza in a student production of [[Pietro Mascagni|Mascagni's]] ''[[Cavalleria rusticana]]'' by the [[Greek National Opera]] at the [[Olympia City Music Theatre "Maria Callas"|Olympia Theatre]], and that autumn she enrolled at the Athens Conservatoire in Elvira de Hidalgo's class.{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|p={{Page needed|date=September 2018}}}}

In 1968 Callas told [[George Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood|Lord Harewood]],
<blockquote>De Hidalgo had the real great training, maybe even the last real training of the {{em|real}} ''bel canto''. As a young girl—thirteen years old—I was immediately thrown into her arms, meaning that I learned the secrets, the ways of this ''bel canto'', which of course as you well know, is not just beautiful singing. It is a very hard training; it is a sort of a strait-jacket that you're supposed to put on, whether you like it or not. You have to learn to read, to write, to form your sentences, how far you can go, fall, hurt yourself, put yourself back on your feet continuously. De Hidalgo had one method, which was the real ''bel canto'' way, where no matter how heavy a voice, it should always be kept light, it should always be worked on in a flexible way, never to weigh it down. It is a method of keeping the voice light and flexible and pushing the instrument into a certain zone where it might not be too large in sound, but penetrating. And teaching the scales, trills, all the ''bel canto'' embellishments, which is a whole vast language of its own.<ref name="harewoodparis"/></blockquote>

De Hidalgo later recalled Callas as "a phenomenon&nbsp;... She would listen to all my students, sopranos, mezzos, tenors&nbsp;... She could do it all."<ref name="documentary">{{cite video|title=Callas: A Documentary (Plus Bonus)|medium=TV documentary, DVD|people=[[John Ardoin]] (writer), [[Franco Zeffirelli]] (narrator) |date=1978 | publisher=The Bel Canto Society}}</ref> Callas said that she would go to "the conservatoire at 10 in the morning and leave with the last pupil&nbsp;... devouring music" for 10 hours a day. When asked by her teacher why she did this, her answer was that even "with the least talented pupil, he can teach you something that you, the most talented, might not be able to do."<ref name="harewoodlondon">{{cite video|people=Maria Callas in conversation with [[George Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood|Lord Harewood]] for the BBC, Paris, April 1968 |title=Maria Callas: The Callas Conversations |medium=DVD |publisher=EMI Classics}}</ref>

== Career ==
=== Early operatic career in Greece ===
After several appearances as a student, Callas began appearing in secondary roles at the Greek National Opera. De Hidalgo was instrumental in securing roles for her, allowing Callas to earn a small salary, which helped her and her family get through the difficult war years.{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|p={{Page needed|date=September 2018}}}}

Callas made her professional debut in February 1941, in the small role of Beatrice in [[Franz von Suppé]]'s ''[[Boccaccio (operetta)|Boccaccio]]''. Soprano Galatea Amaxopoulou, who sang in the chorus, later recalled, "Even in rehearsal, Maria's fantastic performing ability had been obvious, and from then on, the others started trying ways of preventing her from appearing."{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|p={{Page needed|date=September 2018}}}} Fellow singer Maria Alkeou similarly recalled that the established sopranos Nafsika Galanou and Anna (Zozó) Remmoundou "used to stand in the wings while [Callas] was singing and make remarks about her, muttering, laughing, and point their fingers at her".{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|p={{Page needed|date=September 2018}}}}

Despite these hostilities, Callas managed to continue and made her debut in a leading role in August 1942 as Tosca, going on to sing the role of Marta in [[Eugen d'Albert]]'s ''[[Tiefland (opera)|Tiefland]]'' at the Olympia Theatre. Callas's performance as Marta received glowing reviews. Critic Spanoudi declared Callas "an extremely dynamic artist possessing the rarest dramatic and musical gifts", and Evangelos Magkliveras evaluated Callas's performance for the weekly ''To Radiophonon'':
<blockquote>The singer who took the part of Marta, that new star in the Greek firmament, with a matchless depth of feeling, gave a theatrical interpretation well up to the standard of a tragic actress. About her exceptional voice with its astonishing natural fluency, I do not wish to add anything to the words of Alexandra Lalaouni: 'Kalogeropoulou is one of those God-given talents that one can only marvel at.'{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|p={{Page needed|date=September 2018}}}}</blockquote>

Following these performances, even Callas's detractors began to refer to her as "The God-Given".{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|p={{Page needed|date=September 2018}}}} Some time later, watching Callas rehearse [[Ludwig van Beethoven|Beethoven]]'s ''[[Fidelio]]'', rival soprano Anna Remoundou asked a colleague "Could it be that there is something divine and we haven't realized it?"{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|p={{Page needed|date=September 2018}}}} Following ''Tiefland'', Callas sang the role of Santuzza in ''Cavalleria rusticana'' again and followed it with ''O Protomastoras'' ([[Manolis Kalomiris]]) at the ancient [[Odeon of Herodes Atticus]] at the foot of the [[Acropolis]].

During August and September 1944 Callas performed the role of Leonore in a Greek-language production of ''Fidelio'', again at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus. German critic [[Friedrich W. Herzog|Friedrich Herzog]], who attended the performances, declared Leonore Callas's "greatest triumph":{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|p={{Page needed|date=September 2018}}}}
<blockquote>When Maria Kaloyeropoulou's Leonore let her soprano soar out radiantly in the untrammelled jubilation of the duet, she rose to the most sublime heights&nbsp;... Here she gave bud, blossom and fruit to that harmony of sound that also ennobled the art of the prima donna.{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|p={{Page needed|date=September 2018}}}}</blockquote>

After the liberation of Greece, de Hidalgo advised Callas to establish herself in Italy. Callas proceeded to give a series of concerts around Greece, and then, against her teacher's advice, she returned to America to see her father and to further pursue her career. When she left Greece on September 14, 1945, two months short of her 22nd birthday, Callas had given 56 performances in seven operas and had appeared in around 20 recitals.{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|p={{Page needed|date=September 2018}}}} Callas considered her Greek career as the foundation of her musical and dramatic upbringing, saying "When I got to the big career, there were no surprises for me."<ref name="downes">Interview with [[Edward Downes (American musicologist)|Edward Downes]]. ''La Divina Complete'', CD 4. EMI Classics.</ref>

=== Main operatic career ===
After returning to the United States and reuniting with her father in September 1945, Callas made the round of auditions.{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|p={{Page needed|date=September 2018}}}} In December of that year, she auditioned for [[Edward Johnson (tenor)|Edward Johnson]], general manager of the [[Metropolitan Opera]], and was favorably received: "Exceptional voice—ought to be heard very soon on stage".{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|p={{Page needed|date=September 2018}}}}

Callas said that the Metropolitan Opera offered her ''[[Madama Butterfly]]'' and ''Fidelio'', to be performed in Philadelphia and sung in English, both of which she declined, saying that she felt too fat for ''Butterfly'' and did not like the idea of opera in English.<ref name="downes" /> Although this offer is not documented in the Met's records,<ref name="scott" /> in a 1958 interview with the ''[[New York Post]]'', Johnson confirmed that a contract was offered: "...&nbsp;but she didn't like it—because of the contract, not because of the roles. She was right in turning it down—it was frankly a beginner's contract."{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|p={{Page needed|date=September 2018}}}}

=== Italy, Meneghini, and Serafin ===
In 1946, Callas was engaged to re-open the opera house in Chicago as ''[[Turandot]]'', but the [[Chicago Opera Company|company]] folded before opening. Basso [[Nicola Rossi-Lemeni]], who also was to star in this opera, was aware that [[Tullio Serafin]] was looking for a dramatic soprano to cast as ''[[La Gioconda (opera)|La Gioconda]]'' at the [[Arena di Verona]]. He later recalled the young Callas as being "amazing—so strong physically and spiritually; so certain of her future. I knew in a big outdoor theatre like Verona's, this girl, with her courage and huge voice, would make a tremendous impact."<ref name="artandlife">{{harvnb|Ardoin|1974}}</ref>{{page needed|date=May 2021}} Subsequently he recommended Callas to retired tenor and impresario [[Giovanni Zenatello]]. During her audition, Zenatello became so excited that he jumped up and joined Callas in the act 4 duet.<ref name="stassinopoulos"/>

[[File:Callas Meneghini 1957.jpg|thumb|Callas with her husband Giovanni Battista Meneghini in 1957]]
It was in this role that Callas made her Italian debut. Upon her arrival in [[Verona]], Callas met Giovanni Battista Meneghini, an older, wealthy industrialist, who began courting her. They married in 1949, which gave her automatic Italian citizenship, and he assumed control of her career until 1959, when the marriage dissolved. It was Meneghini's love and support that gave Callas the time needed to establish herself in Italy,<ref name="artandlife" />{{page needed|date=May 2021}} and throughout the prime of her career, she went by the name of Maria Meneghini Callas.

After ''La Gioconda'', Callas had no offers, and when Serafin, looking for someone to sing [[Tristan und Isolde|Isolde]], called on her, she told him that she already knew the score, even though she had looked at only the first act out of curiosity while at the conservatory.<ref name="downes"/> She sight-read the opera's second act for Serafin, who praised her for knowing the role so well, whereupon she admitted to having bluffed and having sight-read the music. Even more impressed, Serafin immediately cast her in the role.<ref name="downes"/> Serafin thereafter served as Callas's mentor and supporter.

Lord Harewood stated "Very few Italian conductors have had a more distinguished career than Tullio Serafin, and perhaps none, apart from [[Arturo Toscanini|Toscanini]], more influence".<ref name="harewoodlondon"/> In 1968, Callas recalled that working with Serafin was the "really lucky" opportunity of her career because "he taught me that there must be an expression; that there must be a justification. He taught me the depth of music, the justification of music. That's where I really really drank all I could from this man".<ref name="harewoodparis"/>

=== ''I puritani'' and path to ''bel canto'' ===
The great turning point in Callas's career occurred in [[Venice]] in 1949.<ref name="ownwords">''Callas in her Own Words''. Audio documentary. 3 CDs. Eklipse Records. EKR P-14.</ref> She was engaged to sing the role of Brünnhilde in ''[[Die Walküre]]'' at the [[Teatro la Fenice]], when [[Margherita Carosio]], who was engaged to sing Elvira in ''[[I puritani]]'' in the same theatre, fell ill. Unable to find a replacement for Carosio, Serafin told Callas that she would be singing Elvira in six days; when Callas protested that she not only did not know the role, but also had three more Brünnhildes to sing, he told her "I guarantee that you can".<ref name="harewoodlondon"/> [[Michael Scott (artistic director)|Michael Scott's]] words, "the notion of any one singer embracing music as divergent in its vocal demands as Wagner's Brünnhilde and Bellini's Elvira in the same career would have been cause enough for surprise; but to attempt to essay them both in the same season seemed like ''folie de grandeur''".<ref name="scott"/>

Before the performance actually took place, one incredulous critic snorted, "We hear that Serafin has agreed to conduct ''I puritani'' with a dramatic soprano&nbsp;... When can we expect a new edition of ''La traviata'' with [male baritone] [[Gino Bechi]]'s Violetta?"<ref name="scott"/> After the performance, one critic wrote, "Even the most sceptical had to acknowledge the miracle that Maria Callas accomplished&nbsp;... the flexibility of her limpid, beautifully poised voice, and her splendid high notes. Her interpretation also has a humanity, warmth and expressiveness that one would search for in vain in the fragile, pellucid coldness of other Elviras."<ref name="lowe">{{cite book|editor-first=David A.|editor-last=Lowe|title=Callas: As They Saw Her|publisher=Ungar Publishing Company|location=New York|year=1986|isbn=978-0-8044-5636-4|url=https://archive.org/details/callasastheysawh00lowe}}</ref> [[Franco Zeffirelli]] recalled, "What she did in Venice was really incredible. You need to be familiar with opera to realize the size of her achievement. It was as if someone asked [[Birgit Nilsson]], who is famous for her great [[Richard Wagner|Wagnerian]] voice, to substitute overnight for [[Beverly Sills]], who is one of the great [[coloratura soprano]]s of our time."<ref name="documentary" /><ref>{{cite book|last=Levine|first=Robert|title=Maria Callas: A Musical Biography|page=46|publisher=Black Dog & Leventhal|year=2003|isbn=978-1-57912-283-6}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|first=Arianna|last=Huffington|author-link=Arianna Huffington|title=Maria Callas: The Woman behind the Legend|page=79|publisher=Cooper Square Press|year=2002|isbn=978-1-4616-2429-5}}</ref>

Scott asserts that "Of all the many roles Callas undertook, it is doubtful if any had a more far-reaching effect."<ref name="scott"/> This initial foray into the bel canto repertoire changed the course of Callas's career and set her on a path leading to ''[[Lucia di Lammermoor]]'', ''[[La traviata]]'', ''[[Armida (Rossini)|Armida]]'', ''[[La sonnambula]]'', ''[[Il pirata]]'', ''[[Il turco in Italia]]'', ''[[Médée (Cherubini)|Medea]]'', and ''[[Anna Bolena]]'', and reawakened interest in the long-neglected operas of [[Luigi Cherubini|Cherubini]], [[Vincenzo Bellini|Bellini]], [[Gaetano Donizetti|Donizetti]] and [[Gioachino Rossini|Rossini]].<ref name="documentary"/><ref name="artandlife" />{{page needed|date=May 2021}}

In the words of soprano [[Montserrat Caballé]]:
<blockquote>She opened a new door for us, for all the singers in the world, a door that had been closed. Behind it was sleeping not only great music but great idea of interpretation. She has given us the chance, those who follow her, to do things that were hardly possible before her. That I am compared with Callas is something I never dared to dream. It is not right. I am much smaller than Callas.<ref name="artandlife" />{{page needed|date=May 2021}}</blockquote>

As with ''I puritani'', Callas learned and performed Cherubini's ''Medea'', [[Umberto Giordano|Giordano]]'s ''[[Andrea Chénier]]'' and Rossini's ''Armida'' on a few days' notice.<ref name="artandlife" />{{page needed|date=May 2021}}<ref name="ardoin"/> Throughout her career, Callas displayed her vocal versatility in recitals that juxtaposed dramatic soprano arias alongside coloratura pieces, including in a 1952 RAI recital in which she opened with "[[Macbeth (Verdi)|Lady Macbeth's]]" letter scene, followed by the "Mad Scene" from ''Lucia di Lammermoor'', then Abigaille's treacherous recitative and aria from ''[[Nabucco]]'', finishing with the "Bell Song" from ''[[Lakmé]]'' capped by a ringing high E ''[[in alt]]'' (E6).<ref name="ardoin"/>

=== Important debuts ===
Although by 1951, Callas had sung at all the major theatres in Italy, she had not yet made her official debut at Italy's most prestigious opera house, [[Teatro alla Scala]] in Milan. According to composer [[Gian Carlo Menotti]], Callas had substituted for [[Renata Tebaldi]] in the role of ''[[Aida]]'' in 1950, and La Scala's general manager, Antonio Ghiringhelli, had taken an immediate dislike to Callas.<ref name="documentary" />

Menotti recalls that Ghiringhelli had promised him any singer he wanted for the premiere of ''[[The Consul]]'', but when he suggested Callas, Ghiringhelli said that he would never have Callas at La Scala except as a guest artist. However, as Callas's fame grew, and especially after her great success in ''[[I vespri siciliani]]'' in Florence, Ghiringhelli had to relent: Callas made her official debut at La Scala in [[Giuseppe Verdi|Verdi's]] ''I vespri siciliani'' on opening night in December 1951, and this theatre became her artistic home throughout the 1950s.<ref name="documentary" /> La Scala mounted many new productions specially for Callas by directors including [[Herbert von Karajan]], [[Margarete Wallmann|Margherita Wallmann]], [[Franco Zeffirelli]] and, most importantly, [[Luchino Visconti]].<ref name="artandlife" />{{page needed|date=May 2021}} Visconti stated later that he began directing opera only because of Callas,<ref>''The Callas Conversations, Vol. 2'', EMI DVD</ref> and he directed her in lavish new productions of ''[[La vestale]]'', ''La traviata'', ''La sonnambula'', ''Anna Bolena'' and ''[[Iphigénie en Tauride]]''. Callas was instrumental in arranging [[Franco Corelli]]'s debut at La Scala in 1954, where he sang Licinio in [[Gaspare Spontini|Spontini's]] ''La vestale'' opposite Callas's Julia. The two had sung together for the first time the year previously in Rome in a production of ''[[Norma (opera)|Norma]]''. [[Anthony Tommasini]] wrote that Corelli had "earned great respect from the fearsomely demanding Callas, who, in Mr Corelli, finally had someone with whom she could act."<ref name="NYT">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/30/arts/franco-corelli-italian-tenor-power-charisma-pillar-met-dies-82.html?scp=4&sq=Franco%20Corelli&st=cse|title=Franco Corelli, Italian Tenor of Power and Charisma, and Pillar of the Met, Dies at 82|work=The New York Times|first=Anthony|last=Tommasini|author-link=Anthony Tommasini|date=October 30, 2003|access-date=May 16, 2009}}</ref> The two collaborated several more times at La Scala, singing opposite each other in productions of ''[[Fedora (opera)|Fedora]]'' (1956), ''Il pirata'' (1958) and ''[[Poliuto]]'' (1960). Their partnership continued throughout the rest of Callas's career.<ref name="Opera News">{{cite news|url=http://www.metoperafamily.org/operanews/issue/article.aspx?id=99&issueID=5&archive=true|title=Obituaries: Franco Corelli|work=[[Opera News]]|first=Ira|last=Siff|date=January 2004|access-date=May 16, 2009}}{{dead link|date=June 2016|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref>

[[File:Callas Sirmione.jpg|thumb|left|The Villa in [[Sirmione]] where Callas lived with Giovanni Battista Meneghini between 1950 and 1959]]
The night of the day she married Meneghini in Verona, she sailed for Argentina to sing at the [[Teatro Colón]] in Buenos Aires. Callas made her South American debut in Buenos Aires on May 20, 1949, during the European summer opera recess. ''Aida'', ''Turandot'' and ''Norma'' roles were directed by Serafin, supported by [[Mario Del Monaco]], [[Fedora Barbieri]] and Nicola Rossi-Lemeni. These were her only appearances on this world-renowned stage. Her debut in the United States was five years later in Chicago in 1954, and "with the Callas ''Norma'', [[Lyric Opera of Chicago]] was born."<ref name="vonrhein">{{cite journal|last=von Rhein|first=John|title=The Company That Works|journal=[[Opera News]]|date=August 2004|volume=69|issue=2}}</ref>

Her Metropolitan Opera debut, opening the Met's seventy-second season on October 29, 1956, was again with ''Norma'',<ref>[[Ross Parmenter]], "Maria Callas Bows at Opening of 'Met'", ''The New York Times'' (October 30, 1956), p. 1.</ref> but was preceded by an unflattering cover story in ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine, which rehashed all of the Callas clichés, including her temper, her supposed rivalry with Renata Tebaldi, and especially her difficult relationship with her mother.<ref name="stassinopoulos"/><ref name="ownwords"/> As she had done with Lyric Opera of Chicago, on November 21, 1957, Callas gave a concert to inaugurate what then was billed as the [[Dallas Opera|Dallas Civic Opera]], and helped establish that company with her friends from Chicago, Lawrence Kelly and [[Nicola Rescigno]].<ref name="cantrell">{{cite journal|last=Cantrell|first=Scott|title=And that Spells Dallas|journal=[[Opera News]]|date=November 2006|volume=71|issue=5}}</ref> She further consolidated this company's standing when, in 1958, she gave "a towering performance as Violetta in ''La traviata'', and that same year, in her only American performances of ''[[Médée (Cherubini)|Medea]]'', gave an interpretation of the title role worthy of Euripides."<ref>Davis, Ronald L./ Miller, Henry S., Jr., ''La Scala West: The Dallas Opera Under Kelly and Rescigno'', Texas A & M University Press, {{ISBN|978-0-87074-454-9}}</ref>

[[File:Maria Callas, Mirto Picchi (1957) - Archivio storico Ricordi FOTO003114.jpg|thumb|upright|Callas and Italian tenor [[Mirto Picchi]]; performers in [[Luigi Cherubini|Cherubini]]'s ''[[Médée (Cherubini)|Medea]],'' Milan, 1957]]

In 1958, a feud with general manager [[Rudolf Bing]] led to Callas's Metropolitan Opera contract being cancelled. Impresario [[Allen Oxenburg]] realised that this situation provided him with an opportunity for his own company, the [[American Opera Society]], and he accordingly approached her with a contract to perform Imogene in ''Il pirata''. She accepted and sang the role in a January 1959 performance that according to opera critic [[Allan Kozinn]] "quickly became legendary in operatic circles".<ref name="nyt">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1992/07/07/arts/allen-sven-oxenburg-64-dead-american-opera-society-founder.html|title=Allen Sven Oxenburg, 64, Dead; American Opera Society Founder|work=[[The New York Times]]|first=Allan|last=Kozinn|author-link=Allan Kozinn|date=July 7, 1992|access-date=August 12, 2009}}</ref> Bing and Callas later reconciled their differences, and she returned to the Met in 1965 to sing the title role in two performances as Tosca opposite Franco Corelli as Cavaradossi for one performance (March 19, 1965) and [[Richard Tucker]] (March 25, 1965) with [[Tito Gobbi]] as Scarpia for her final performances at the Met.{{citation needed|date=December 2015}}

In 1952, she made her London debut at the [[Royal Opera House]] in ''Norma'' with veteran [[mezzo-soprano]] [[Ebe Stignani]] as Adalgisa, a performance which survives on record and also features the young [[Joan Sutherland]] in the small role of Clotilde.<ref name="ardoin"/> Callas and the London public had what she called "a love affair",<ref name="stassinopoulos"/> and she returned to the Royal Opera House in 1953, 1957, 1958, 1959, and 1964 to 1965.<ref name="artandlife" />{{page needed|date=May 2021}} It was at the Royal Opera House where, on July 5, 1965, Callas ended her stage career in the role of ''Tosca'', in a production designed and mounted for her by [[Franco Zeffirelli]] and featuring her friend and colleague Tito Gobbi.<ref name="artandlife" />{{page needed|date=May 2021}}

=== Weight loss ===
{{external media|float=right|width=20%|image1=[https://www.mariacallasestate.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/1954.jpg Photographic comparison of weight loss during 1953–54.] The estate of Maria Callas writes that she lost {{convert|30|kg|lb}} from 1953 to 1954.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.mariacallasestate.com/ |title=Timeline |website=Maria Callas Estate |access-date=September 2, 2024}}</ref> Other weight loss estimates include 36 kg.<ref name="documentary"/>}}
In the early years of her career, Callas was a heavy woman; in her own words, "Heavy—one can say—yes I was; but I'm also a tall woman, 5' {{frac|8|1|2}}" ({{convert|5|ft|8.5|in|2|disp=out}}), and I used to weigh no more than {{convert|200|lb|kg|-1|abbr=off}}."<ref name="downes"/> Tito Gobbi relates that during a lunch break while recording ''Lucia'' in Florence, Serafin commented to Callas that she was eating too much and allowing her weight to become a problem. When she protested that she was not so heavy, Gobbi suggested she should "put the matter to test" by stepping on the weighing machine outside the restaurant. The result was "somewhat dismaying, and she became rather silent."<ref name="Gobbi, Tito 1980">[[Tito Gobbi|Gobbi, Tito]] (1980), ''Tito Gobbi: My Life'', Futura Publications, {{ISBN|0-7088-1805-6|0-7088-1805-6}}</ref> In 1968, Callas told [[Edward Downes (American musicologist)|Edward Downes]] that during her initial performances in Cherubini's ''Medea'' in May 1953, she realized that she needed a leaner face and figure to do dramatic justice to this as well as the other roles she was undertaking. She added,
{{clear}}
<blockquote>I was getting so heavy that even my vocalizing was getting heavy. I was tiring myself, I was perspiring too much, and I was really working too hard. And I wasn't really well, as in health; I couldn't move freely. And then I was tired of playing a game, for instance playing this beautiful young woman, and I was heavy and uncomfortable to move around. In any case, it was uncomfortable and I didn't like it. So I felt now if I'm going to do things right—I've studied all my life to put things right musically, so why don't I diet and put myself into a certain condition where I'm presentable.<ref name="downes"/></blockquote>

During 1953 and early 1954, she lost almost {{convert|80|lb|kg}}, turning herself into what Rescigno called "possibly the most beautiful lady on the stage."<ref name="documentary"/> Various rumors spread regarding her weight loss method; one had her swallowing a [[tapeworm]], and Rome's Panatella Mills pasta company claimed she lost weight by eating their "physiologic pasta," prompting Callas to file a lawsuit.<ref name="scott"/> Callas stated that she lost the weight by eating a sensible low-calorie diet of mainly salads and chicken.<ref name="downes"/> Callas never regained the weight she lost and kept her slim figure until her death.

Some believe that the loss of body mass made it more difficult for her to support her voice, triggering the vocal strain that became apparent later in the decade, and others believed the weight loss effected a newfound softness and femininity in her voice, as well as a greater confidence as a person and performer.<ref name="artandlife" />{{page needed|date=May 2021}} Tito Gobbi said,

<blockquote>Now she was not only supremely gifted both musically and dramatically—she was a beauty too. And her awareness of this invested with fresh magic every role she undertook. What it eventually did to her vocal and nervous stamina I am not prepared to say. I only assert that she blossomed into an artist unique in her generation and outstanding in the whole range of vocal history.<ref name="Gobbi, Tito 1980"/></blockquote>

=== Alleged Callas–Tebaldi rivalry ===
[[File:Renata Tebaldi-head&shoulders-1961.jpg|thumb|upright|Callas's rival, [[Renata Tebaldi]], 1961]]
During the early 1950s, an alleged rivalry arose between Callas and Renata Tebaldi, an Italian lyrico [[spinto]] soprano.<ref name="artandlife" />{{page needed|date=May 2021}} The contrast between Callas's often unconventional vocal qualities and Tebaldi's classically beautiful sound resurrected a debate, namely, beauty of sound versus the expressive use of sound.<ref name="artandlife" />{{page needed|date=May 2021}}<ref name="debate" />

In 1951, Tebaldi and Maria Callas were jointly booked for a vocal recital in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Although the singers agreed that neither would perform encores, Tebaldi took two, and Callas was reportedly incensed.<ref>[http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Renata_Tebaldi.aspx "Renata Tebaldi"]. ''Encyclopedia of World Biography''. The Gale Group Inc, 2006. Reprinted on Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved July 29, 2016.</ref> This incident began the rivalry, which reached a fever pitch in the mid-1950s, at times even engulfing the two women themselves, who were said by their more fanatical followers to have engaged in verbal barbs in each other's direction.

Tebaldi was quoted as saying, "I have one thing that Callas doesn't have: a heart",<ref name="stassinopoulos"/> and Callas was quoted in ''Time'' magazine as saying that comparing her with Tebaldi was like "comparing Champagne with [[Cognac]]&nbsp;... No&nbsp;... with Coca Cola".<ref>"Diva Serena", ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'', November 3, 1958</ref> However, witnesses to the interview stated that Callas had said only "champagne with cognac", and that it was a bystander who had quipped: "...&nbsp;No&nbsp;... with Coca-Cola." Nevertheless, the ''Time'' reporter attributed the latter comment to Callas.<ref name="stassinopoulos"/>

According to [[John Ardoin]], these two singers never should have been compared.<ref name="artandlife" />{{page needed|date=May 2021}} Tebaldi was trained by [[Carmen Melis]], a noted [[verismo]] specialist, and she was rooted in the early 20th century Italian school of singing just as firmly as Callas was rooted in 19th century [[bel canto]].<ref name="artandlife" />{{page needed|date=May 2021}} Callas was a dramatic soprano, whereas Tebaldi was considered essentially a lyric soprano. Callas and Tebaldi generally sang a different repertoire: In the early years of her career, Callas concentrated on the heavy dramatic soprano roles and later in her career on the bel canto repertoire, whereas Tebaldi concentrated on late [[Giuseppe Verdi|Verdi]] and verismo roles, where her limited upper extension<ref name="debate"/> and her lack of a florid technique were not issues.<ref name="artandlife" />{{page needed|date=May 2021}} They shared a few roles, including [[Tosca]] in Puccini's opera and ''[[La Gioconda (opera)|La Gioconda]]'', which Tebaldi performed only late in her career.{{citation needed|date=April 2018}}

The alleged rivalry aside, Callas made remarks appreciative of Tebaldi, and vice versa. During an interview with Norman Ross Jr. in Chicago, Callas said, "I admire Tebaldi's tone; it's beautiful—also some beautiful phrasing. Sometimes, I actually wish I had her voice." Francis Robinson of the Met wrote of an incident in which Tebaldi asked him to recommend a recording of ''La Gioconda'' in order to help her learn the role. Being fully aware of the alleged rivalry, he recommended [[Zinka Milanov]]'s version. A few days later, he went to visit Tebaldi, only to find her sitting by the speakers, listening intently to Callas's recording. She then looked up at him and asked, "Why didn't you tell me Maria's was the best?"<ref name=robinson>{{cite book|last=Robinson|first=Francis|title=Celebration: The Metropolitan Opera|publisher=Doubleday|location=Garden City, New Jersey|year=1979|isbn=978-0-385-12975-6|url=https://archive.org/details/celebrationmetro00robi}}</ref>

Callas visited Tebaldi after a performance of ''[[Adriana Lecouvreur]]'' at the Met in 1968, and the two were reunited. In 1978, Tebaldi spoke warmly of her late colleague and summarized this rivalry:
<blockquote>This rivality{{sic}} was really building from the people of the newspapers and the fans. But I think it was very good for both of us, because the publicity was so big and it created a very big interest about me and Maria and was very good in the end. But I don't know why they put this kind of rivality{{sic}}, because the voice was very different. She was really something unusual. And I remember that I was very young artist too, and I stayed near the radio every time that I know that there was something on radio by Maria.<ref name="documentary"/></blockquote>

=== Vocal decline ===
In the opinion of several singers, the heavy roles undertaken in her early years damaged Callas's voice.<ref name="rasponi"/> The mezzo-soprano Giulietta Simionato, Callas's close friend and frequent colleague, stated that she told Callas that she felt that the early heavy roles led to a weakness in the diaphragm and subsequent difficulty in controlling the upper register.<ref name="hastings">{{cite journal|last=Hastings|first=Stephen|title=The Spirit of Giulietta|journal=[[Opera News]]|date=May 2002}}</ref>

[[Louise Caselotti]], who worked with Callas in 1946 and 1947, prior to her Italian debut, felt that it was not the heavy roles that hurt Callas's voice, but the lighter ones.{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|p={{Page needed|date=September 2018}}}} Several singers have suggested that Callas's heavy use of the chest voice led to stridency and unsteadiness with the high notes.<ref name="rasponi"/> In his book, Callas's husband Meneghini wrote that Callas suffered an unusually early onset of [[menopause]], which could have affected her voice. Soprano [[Carol Neblett]] once said, "A woman sings with her [[ovary|ovaries]]—you're only as good as your hormones."<ref name="mordden"/>

Critic [[Henry Pleasants (music critic)|Henry Pleasants]] has stated that it was a loss of physical strength and breath-support that led to Callas's vocal problems, saying,<blockquote>Singing, and especially opera singing, requires physical strength. Without it, the singer's respiratory functions can no longer support the steady emissions of breath essential to sustaining the production of focused tone. The breath escapes, but it is no longer the power behind the tone, or is only partially and intermittently. The result is a breathy sound—tolerable but hardly beautiful—when the singer sings lightly, and a voice spread and squally when under pressure.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Pleasants|first1=Henry|year=1993|title=Maria Meneghini Callas|journal=Opera Quarterly|volume=10|issue=2|pages=159–63|doi=10.1093/oq/10.2.159}}</ref></blockquote>

In the same vein, [[Joan Sutherland]], who heard Callas throughout the 1950s, said in a BBC interview,
<blockquote>[Hearing Callas in ''Norma'' in 1952] was a shock, a wonderful shock. You just got shivers up and down the spine. It was a bigger sound in those earlier performances, before she lost weight. I think she tried very hard to recreate the sort of "fatness" of the sound which she had when she was as fat as she was. But when she lost the weight, she couldn't seem to sustain the great sound that she had made, and the body seemed to be too frail to support that sound that she was making. Oh, but it was oh so exciting. It was thrilling. I don't think that anyone who heard Callas after 1955 really heard the Callas voice.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llJDRA9Mb4w| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111207004042/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llJDRA9Mb4w&gl=US&hl=en| archive-date=2011-12-07 | url-status=dead|title=Dame Joan Sutherland Talks about Maria Callas' Voice – BBC interview|publisher=YouTube|date=December 19, 2009|access-date=April 6, 2013}}</ref></blockquote>

Michael Scott has proposed that Callas's loss of strength and breath support was directly caused by her rapid and progressive weight loss,<ref name="scott"/> something that was noted even in her prime. Of her 1958 recital in Chicago, Robert Detmer wrote, "There were sounds fearfully uncontrolled, forced beyond the too-slim singer's present capacity to support or sustain."<ref name="lowe"/>

Photos and videos of Callas during her heavy era show a very upright posture with the shoulders relaxed and held back. Of a television broadcast from May 1960 of a recital in Hamburg, ''The Opera Quarterly'' noted, "[W]e [can] watch&nbsp;... the constantly sinking, depressed chest and hear the resulting deterioration".<ref>{{cite journal|journal=The Opera Quarterly|volume=4|issue=4|page=129|title=Review of ''Demented: The World of the Opera Diva'' by Ethan Mordden, Franklin Watts 1984|first=Phyllis|last=Curtin|author-link=Phyllis Curtin|title-link=Ethan Mordden}}; cited in Scott (1992), p. 220.</ref> This continual change in posture has been cited as visual proof of a progressive loss of breath support.<ref name="scott"/><ref name="whitson"/>

Commercial and [[bootleg recording|bootleg]] recordings of Callas from the late 1940s to 1953—the period during which she sang the heaviest dramatic soprano roles—show no decline in the fabric of the voice, no loss in volume and no unsteadiness or shrinkage in the upper register.<ref name="ardoin" />{{page needed|date=May 2021}} Of her December 1952 Lady Macbeth—coming after five years of singing the most strenuous dramatic soprano repertoire—Peter Dragadze wrote for ''Opera'', "Callas' voice since last season has improved a great deal, the second passagio on the high B-natural and C has now completely cleared, giving her an equally colored scale from top to bottom."<ref name="artandlife" />{{page needed|date=May 2021}} And of her performance of Medea a year later, John Ardoin writes, "The performance displays Callas in as secure and free a voice as she will be found at any point in her career. The many top B's have a brilliant ring, and she handles the treacherous [[tessitura]] like an eager thoroughbred."<ref name="ardoin" />{{page needed|date=May 2021}}

In recordings from 1954 (immediately after her {{convert|80|lb|kg|adj=on|disp=or}} weight loss) and thereafter, "not only would the instrument lose its warmth and become thin and acidulous, but the altitudinous passages would to her no longer come easily."<ref name="scott">{{cite book|last=Scott|first=Michael|title=Maria Meneghini Callas|publisher=Northeastern University Press|location=Boston|year=1992|url=https://archive.org/details/mariameneghinica00scot|url-access=registration|isbn=978-1-55553-146-1}}</ref> It was at this time that unsteady top notes first begin to appear.<ref name="ardoin" />{{page needed|date=May 2021}} Walter Legge, who produced nearly all of Callas's EMI/Angel recordings, states that Callas "ran into a patch of vocal difficulties as early as 1954": during the recording of ''[[La forza del destino]]'', done immediately after the weight loss, the "wobble had become so pronounced" that he told Callas they "would have to give away seasickness pills with every side".<ref name="schwarzkopf"/>

There were others, however, who felt that the voice had benefitted from the weight loss. Of her performance of ''Norma'' in Chicago in 1954, Claudia Cassidy wrote that "there is a slight unsteadiness in some of the sustained upper notes, but to me her voice is more beautiful in color, more even through the range, than it used to be".<ref name="lowe"/> And at her performance of the same opera in London in 1957 (her first performance at Covent Garden after the weight loss), critics again felt her voice had changed for the better, that it had now supposedly become a more precise instrument, with a new focus.<ref name="lowe"/> Many of her most critically acclaimed appearances are from 1954–1958 (''Norma'', ''La traviata'', ''Sonnambula'' and ''Lucia'' of 1955, ''Anna Bolena'' of 1957, ''Medea'' of 1958, among others).
Callas's close friend and colleague Tito Gobbi thought that her vocal problems all stemmed from her state of mind:
<blockquote>I don't think anything happened to her voice. I think she only lost confidence. She was at the top of a career that a human being could desire, and she felt enormous responsibility. She was obliged to give her best every night, and maybe she felt she wasn't [able] any more, and she lost confidence. I think this was the beginning of the end of this career.<ref name="documentary"/></blockquote>

In support of Gobbi's assertion, a bootleg recording of Callas rehearsing Beethoven's aria "[[Ah! perfido]]" and parts of Verdi's ''La forza del destino'' shortly before her death shows her voice to be in much better shape than much of her 1960s recordings and far healthier than the 1970s concerts with [[Giuseppe Di Stefano]].<ref name="ardoin" />{{page needed|date=May 2021}}

Soprano [[Renée Fleming]] posited that videos of Callas in the late 1950s and early 1960s reveal a posture that betrays breath-support problems:
<blockquote>I have a theory about what caused her vocal decline, but it's more from watching her sing than from listening. I really think it was her weight loss that was so dramatic and so quick. It's not the weight loss ''per se''—you know, [[Deborah Voigt]] has lost a lot of weight and still sounds glorious. But if one uses the weight for support, and then it's suddenly gone and one doesn't develop another musculature for support, it can be very hard on the voice. And you can't estimate the toll that emotional turmoil will take as well. I was told, by somebody who knew her well, that the way Callas held her arms to her solar plexus [allowed her] to push and create some kind of support. If she were a [[Soubrette]], it would never have been an issue. But she was singing the most difficult repertoire, the stuff that requires the most stamina, the most strength.<ref name="whitson" /></blockquote>

However, writing about [[Voice type|dramatic soprano]] Deborah Voigt in 2006 shortly after her {{convert|135|lb|kg|-1|adj=on}} weight loss after [[gastric bypass surgery]], music critic [[Peter G. Davis]] brings up comparisons with Callas and notes an increasing acidity and thinning in Voigt's voice that recall the changes in Callas's voice after her weight loss:
<blockquote>A change has also come over Voigt's voice lately, though it's hard to tell if it's from weight loss or normal aging—controversy still rages over whether Maria Callas' drastic diets contributed to her rapid vocal decline. Not that Voigt as yet exhibits any of Callas' technical problems: Her voice continues to be reliably supported and under control. What is noticeable, however—earlier this season in Verdi's La Forza del Destino and now in Tosca—is a marked thinning of quality at the very center of the instrument, together with a slight acidity and tightening of the tone that has definitely taken the youthful bloom off, especially at the top.<ref>[[Peter G. Davis]], [http://nymag.com/arts/classicaldance/classical/reviews/16855/ "Deborah Voigt's New Problem: Now that she looks the part, the soprano sounds troublingly tentative and colorless in ''Tosca''"], ''[[New York (magazine)|New York]]'', May 8, 2006</ref></blockquote>

Voigt explained how her dramatic weight loss affected her breathing and breath support:
<blockquote>Much of what I did with my weight was very natural, vocally. Now I've got a different body—there's not as much of me around. My diaphragm function, the way my throat feels, is not compromised in any way. But I do have to think about it more now. I have to remind myself to keep my ribs open. I have to remind myself, if my breath starts to stack. When I took a breath before, the weight would kick in and give it that extra whhoomf! Now it doesn't do that. If I don't remember to get rid of the old air and re-engage the muscles, the breath starts stacking, and that's when you can't get your phrase, you crack high notes.<ref name="singer">{{cite journal|last=Singer|first=Barry|title=Turning Point|journal=[[Opera News]]|date=October 2006}}</ref></blockquote>

Callas attributed her problems to a loss of confidence brought about by a loss of breath support, even though she does not make the connection between her weight and her breath support. In an April 1977 interview with journalist Philippe Caloni, she stated,
<blockquote>My best recordings were made when I was skinny, and I say skinny, not slim, because I worked a lot and couldn't gain weight back; I became even too skinny&nbsp;... I had my greatest successes – ''Lucia'', ''Sonnambula'', ''Medea'', ''Anna Bolena'' – when I was skinny as a nail. Even for my first time here in Paris in 1958 when the show was broadcast through Eurovision, I was skinny. Really skinny."<ref>April 1977 Interview with journalist Philippe Caloni, translated by Marie Gilles, available at {{YouTube|g1D0mEpyoCY}}</ref></blockquote>

And shortly before her death, Callas confided her own thoughts on her vocal problems to Peter Dragadze:
<blockquote>I never lost my voice, but I lost strength in my diaphragm.&nbsp;... Because of those organic complaints, I lost my courage and boldness. My vocal cords were and still are in excellent condition, but my 'sound boxes' have not been working well even though I have been to all the doctors. The result was that I overstrained my voice, and that caused it to wobble. (''Gente'', October 1, 1977){{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|p={{Page needed|date=September 2018}}}}</blockquote>

Whether Callas's vocal decline was due to ill health, early menopause, over-use and abuse of her voice, loss of breath-support, loss of confidence, or weight loss will continue to be debated. Whatever the cause may have been, her singing career was effectively over by age 40, and even at the time of her death at age 53, according to Walter Legge, "she ought still to have been singing magnificently".<ref name="schwarzkopf"/>

==== Fussi and Paolillo report ====
A 2010 study by Italian vocal researchers Franco Fussi and Nico Paolillo revealed Callas was very ill at the time of her death and her illness was related to her vocal deterioration. According to their findings, presented at the [[University of Bologna]] in 2010, Callas had [[dermatomyositis]], a rare connective tissue disease that causes a failure of the muscles and ligaments, including the larynx. They believe she was showing signs of this disease as early as the 1960s. Fussi and Paolillo cite an initial report by physician Mario Giacovazzo, who in 2002 revealed he had diagnosed Callas with dermatomyositis in 1975. Treatment included corticosteroids and immunosuppressive agents, which affect heart function.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Brigo |first=Francesco |date=2023-11-27 |title=“Qui la voce sua soave”: “Maria Callas’ dermatomyositis”—art beyond disease and its stigma |url=https://doi.org/10.1007/s10072-023-07214-9 |journal=Neurological Sciences |volume=45 |issue=2 |pages=783–785 |doi=10.1007/s10072-023-07214-9 |issn=1590-1874|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

At an event hosted by the journal ''Il Saggiatore Musicale'', Fussi and Paolillo presented documentation showing when and how her voice changed over time. Using modern audio technology, they analyzed live Callas studio recordings from the 1950s through the 1970s, looking for signs of deterioration. Spectrographic analysis showed that she was losing the top half of her range. Fussi observed video recordings in which Callas's posture seemed strained and weakened. He felt that her drastic weight loss in 1954 further contributed to reduced physical support of her voice.{{citation needed|date=December 2015}}

Fussi and Paolillo also examined restored footage of the infamous 1958 ''Norma'' "walkout" in Rome, which led to harsh criticism of Callas as a temperamental superstar. By applying spectrographic analysis to that footage, the researchers observed her voice was tired and she lacked control and that she had bronchitis and tracheitis as she claimed, and that the dermatomyositis was already causing her muscles to deteriorate.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.lastampa.it/2010/12/21/esteri/lastampa-in-english/opera-legend-maria-callas-didn-t-die-of-a-broken-heart-z9QHOp38idfnQIS50pStjI/pagina.html|title=Opera Legend Maria Callas Didn't Die Of A Broken Heart|website=[[La Stampa]]|first=Giangiorgio|last=Satragni|date=December 21, 2010|access-date=April 6, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131203031933/http://www.lastampa.it/2010/12/21/esteri/lastampa-in-english/opera-legend-maria-callas-didn-t-die-of-a-broken-heart-z9QHOp38idfnQIS50pStjI/pagina.html|archive-date=December 3, 2013|url-status=dead}}</ref>

=== Scandals and later career ===
{{External media|image1=[http://ancient-serpent.tumblr.com/image/35982555505 Callas yelling at US Marshal after ''Butterfly'', Chicago 1955]}}
[[File:Een portret van de zangeres, Bestanddeelnr 926-8776.jpg|thumb|Callas in 1973]]
The latter half of Callas's career was marked by a number of scandals. Following a performance of ''Madama Butterfly'' in Chicago in 1955, Callas was confronted by a process server who handed her papers about a lawsuit brought by Eddy Bagarozy, who claimed he was her agent. Callas was photographed with her mouth turned in a furious snarl.<ref>[https://www.chicagotribune.com/1997/02/09/callas-sang-here/ "Callas Sang Here – Remembering A Great Love Affair In Our Musical History"] by John von Rhein, ''[[Chicago Tribune]]'', February 9, 1997</ref> The photo was sent around the world and gave rise to the myth of Callas as a temperamental [[prima donna]] and a "Tigress".

In 1956, just before her debut at the Metropolitan Opera, ''Time'' ran a damaging cover story about Callas, with special attention paid to her difficult relationship with her mother and some unpleasant exchanges between the two.<ref name="Time 1956" /><ref name=":0"/><ref name="Music: The Prima Donna"/>

In 1957, Callas was starring as Amina in ''La sonnambula'' at the [[Edinburgh International Festival]] with the forces of [[La Scala]]. Her contract was for four performances, but due to the great success of the series, La Scala decided to put on a fifth performance. Callas told the La Scala officials that she was physically exhausted and that she had already committed to a previous engagement, a party thrown for her by her friend [[Elsa Maxwell]] in Venice. Despite this, La Scala announced a fifth performance, with Callas billed as Amina. Callas refused to stay and went on to Venice. Despite the fact that she had fulfilled her contract, she was accused of walking out on La Scala and the festival. La Scala officials did not defend Callas or inform the press that the additional performance was not approved by Callas. [[Renata Scotto]] took over the part, which was the start of her international career.{{citation needed|date=April 2018}}

In January 1958, Callas was to open the Rome Opera House season with ''Norma'', with Italy's president, [[Giovanni Gronchi]], in attendance. The day before the opening night, Callas alerted the management that she was not well and that they should have a standby ready. She was told "No one can double Callas".<ref name="documentary"/> After being treated by doctors, she felt better on the day of performance and decided to go ahead with the opera.<ref name="scott"/> A surviving bootleg recording of the first act reveals Callas sounding ill.<ref name="ardoin" />{{rp|133}} Feeling that her voice was slipping away, she felt that she could not complete the performance, and consequently, she cancelled after the first act. She was accused of walking out on the president of Italy in a fit of temperament, and pandemonium broke out. Doctors confirmed that Callas had [[bronchitis]] and [[tracheitis]], and the President's wife called to tell her they knew she was sick. However, they made no statements to the media, and the endless stream of press coverage aggravated the situation.<ref name="artandlife" />{{page needed|date=May 2021}}

A [[newsreel]] included file footage of Callas from 1955 sounding well, intimating the footage was of rehearsals for the Rome ''Norma'', with the voiceover narration, "Here she is in rehearsal, sounding perfectly healthy", followed by "If you want to hear Callas, don't get all dressed up. Just go to a rehearsal; she usually stays to the end of those."<ref name="lifeandart">{{cite video|title=Maria Callas: Life and Art|medium=TV documentary, available on DVD|date=1987|publisher=EMI}}{{Nonspecific|date=July 2021}}</ref>

Callas's relationship with La Scala had also started to become strained after the Edinburgh incident, and this effectively severed her major ties with her artistic home. Later in 1958, Callas and Rudolf Bing were in discussion about her season at the Met. She was scheduled to perform in Verdi's ''La traviata'' and in ''Macbeth'', two very different operas which almost require totally different singers. Callas and the Met could not reach an agreement, and before the opening of ''Medea'' in Dallas, Bing sent a telegram to Callas terminating her contract. Headlines of "Bing Fires Callas" appeared in newspapers around the world.<ref name="stassinopoulos"/> Nicola Rescigno later recalled, "That night, she came to the theater, looking like an empress: she wore an ermine thing that draped to the floor, and she had every piece of jewellery she ever owned. And she said, 'You all know what's happened. Tonight, for me, is a very difficult night, and I will need the help of every one of you.' Well, she proceeded to give a performance [of ''Medea''] that was historical."<ref name="ownwords" />

Bing later said that Callas was the most difficult artist he ever worked with, "because she was so much more intelligent. Other artists, you could get around. But Callas you could not get around. She knew exactly what she wanted, and why she wanted it."<ref name="documentary"/> Despite this, Bing's admiration for Callas never wavered, and in September 1959, he sneaked into La Scala in order to listen to Callas record ''La Gioconda'' for [[EMI]].<ref name="stassinopoulos" /> Callas and Bing reconciled in the mid 1960s, and Callas returned to the Met for two performances of ''[[Tosca]]'' with her friend Tito Gobbi.

In her final years as a singer, she sang in ''Medea'' and ''Norma'', and ''Tosca'' in Paris, New York, and London from January–February 1964. Her last stage performance was July 5, 1965, at Covent Garden. A live television transmission of act 2 of the Covent Garden ''Tosca'' of 1964 was broadcast in Britain on February 9, 1964, giving a rare view of Callas in performance and of her on-stage collaboration with Tito Gobbi, directed by [[Carlo Felice Cillario]].
[[File:CallasAmsterdam1973a.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|Callas during her final tour in Amsterdam in 1973]]
In 1969, the Italian filmmaker [[Pier Paolo Pasolini]] cast Callas in her only non-operatic acting role, as the Greek mythological character of Medea, in his [[Medea (1969 film)|film by that name]]. The production was grueling, and according to the account in Ardoin's ''Callas, the Art and the Life'', Callas is said to have fainted after a day of strenuous running back and forth on a mudflat in the sun. The film was not a commercial success, but as Callas's only film appearance, it documents something of her stage presence.

From October 1971 to March 1972, Callas gave a series of master classes at the [[Juilliard School]] in New York. These classes later formed the basis of [[Terrence McNally]]'s 1995 play ''[[Master Class]]''. Callas staged a series of joint recitals in Europe in 1973 and in the U.S., South Korea, and Japan in 1974 with the tenor [[Giuseppe Di Stefano]]. Critically, this was a musical disaster owing to both performers' worn-out voices.<ref name="stassinopoulos"/> However, the tour was an enormous popular success. Audiences thronged to hear the two performers, who had so often appeared together in their prime. Her final public performance was on November 11, 1974, in [[Sapporo]], Japan. Callas and Di Stefano were to have appeared together in four staged performances of ''Tosca'' in Japan in late 1975 but Callas cancelled.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Crory |first1=Neil |title=Maria Callas In Toronto – A Night On The Town (15 October 2014) |url=https://www.ludwig-van.com/toronto/2014/10/15/the-voice-maria-callas-in-toronto-the-highs-and-the-lows/ |website=Ludwig Von Toronto |date=October 15, 2014 |publisher=Museland Media Inc. |access-date=March 31, 2022}}</ref>

=== Onassis, final years, and death ===
[[File:Aristotle Onassis.JPG|thumb|upright=0.6|Aristotle Onassis]]
In 1957, while still married to husband Giovanni Battista Meneghini, Callas was introduced to Greek shipping magnate [[Aristotle Onassis]] at a party given in her honor by [[Elsa Maxwell]] after a performance in Donizetti's ''Anna Bolena''.<ref name="scott" /> The affair that followed received much publicity in the popular press, and in November 1959, Callas left her husband. Michael Scott asserts that Onassis was not sure why Callas largely abandoned her career, but that he offered her a way out of a career that was made increasingly difficult by scandals and by vocal resources that were diminishing at an alarming rate.<ref name="scott" /> Franco Zeffirelli, on the other hand, recalls asking Callas in 1963 why she had not practiced her singing, and Callas responding that "I have been trying to fulfill my life as a woman."<ref name="documentary" />

[[File:Churchill and Maria Callas.jpg|thumb|left|Callas with [[Winston Churchill]] on Onassis' yacht in the late 50s]]
According to one of her biographers, [[Nicholas Gage]], Callas and Onassis had a child, a boy, who died hours after he was born on March 30, 1960.<ref name="gage">{{cite book | last=Gage | first=Nicholas | title=Greek Fire: The Story Of Maria Callas and Aristotle Onassis | publisher=Knopf | date=October 3, 2000 | isbn=978-0-375-40244-9 | url=https://archive.org/details/greekfirestoryof00gage }}</ref> In his book about his wife, Meneghini states categorically that Maria Callas was unable to bear children.<ref name="meneghini">{{cite book | last=Meneghini | first=Giovanni Battista | title=My Wife Maria Callas | publisher=Farrar Straus Giroux | location=New York | year=1982 | isbn=978-0-374-21752-5 | url=https://archive.org/details/mywifemariacalla00mene }}</ref> Various sources also dismiss Gage's claim, as they note that the birth certificates Gage used to prove this "secret child" were issued in 1998, twenty-one years after Callas's death.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.divinarecords.com/secret_son.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111004034035/http://www.divinarecords.com/secret_son.htm|url-status=dead|title=A Callas Recording Update|archive-date=October 4, 2011}}</ref> Still other sources claim that Callas had at least one abortion while involved with Onassis.<ref>[[John Ardoin]] in ''Callas, La Divina'' (film documentary) {{IMDb title|0261051|Maria Callas: La Divina – A Portrait|(1988)}}</ref>

In 1966, Callas [[renunciation of United States citizenship|renounced her U.S. citizenship]] at the [[Embassy of the United States, Paris|American Embassy in Paris]], to facilitate the end of her marriage to Meneghini.{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|p={{Page needed|date=September 2018}}}}<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=ioU0AAAAIBAJ&pg=3411,550438&dq=renounced+us+citizenship&hl=en|title=Maria Callas Has Renounced US Citizenship|work=Palm Beach Daily News|date=April 7, 1966|access-date=May 12, 2012}}{{Dead link|date=December 2021 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> This was because after her renunciation, she was only a Greek citizen, and under Greek law of that time, a Greek could legally marry only in a [[Greek Orthodoxy|Greek Orthodox church]]. As she had married in a Roman Catholic church, this divorced her in Greece. The renunciation also helped her finances, as she no longer had to pay U.S. taxes on her income. Her relationship with Onassis ended two years later in 1968, when he left Callas for [[Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis|Jacqueline Kennedy]]. However, the Onassis family's private secretary Kiki writes in her memoir that even while Aristotle was with Jackie, he frequently met with Maria in Paris, where they resumed what had now become a clandestine affair.<ref name="gage"/>
[[File:Avenue Georges-Mandel, 36, Paris 16.jpg|thumb|upright|The last residence of Maria Callas, in Paris]]

Callas spent her last years living largely in isolation in Paris and died of a heart attack at age 53 on September 16, 1977.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/1202.html|title=Maria Callas, 53, Is Dead of Heart Attack in Paris|website=archive.nytimes.com|access-date=April 18, 2018}}</ref>

A funerary liturgy was held at [[St. Stephen's Greek Orthodox Cathedral, Paris|St Stephen's Greek Orthodox Cathedral]] on rue Georges-Bizet, Paris on September 20, 1977. She was later cremated at the [[Père Lachaise Cemetery]] and her ashes were placed in the [[columbarium]] there. After being stolen and later recovered, they were scattered over the Aegean Sea, off the coast of Greece, according to her wish, in the spring of 1979.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Who was Maria Callas, the great operatic soprano voice nicknamed 'La Divina'? |url=https://www.classicfm.com/artists/maria-callas/voice-family-life-death-operatic-soprano/ |access-date=2023-12-11 |website=Classic FM |language=en}}</ref>

During a 1978 interview, upon being asked "Was it worth it to Maria Callas? She was a lonely, unhappy, often difficult woman", music critic and Callas's friend John Ardoin replied:<blockquote>That's such a difficult question. There are times, you know, when there are people – certain people who are blessed, and cursed, with an extraordinary gift, in which the gift is almost greater than the human being. And Callas was one of these people. It was almost as if her wishes, her life, her own happiness were all subservient to this incredible, incredible gift that she was given, this gift that reached out and taught us all – taught us things about music we knew very well, but showed us new things, things we never thought about, new possibilities. I think that's why singers admire her so; I think that's why conductors admire her so; I know that's why I admire her so. And she paid a tremendously difficult and expensive price for this career. I don't think she always understood what she did or why she did. She knew she had a tremendous effect on audiences and on people. But it was not something that she could always live with gracefully or happily. I once said to her, "It must be very enviable to be Maria Callas." And she said, "No, it's a very terrible thing to be Maria Callas, because it's a question of trying to understand something you can never really understand." Because she couldn't explain what she did – it was all done by instinct; it was something, incredibly, embedded deep within her.<ref>''Swank in the Arts'', KERA TV, Dallas, Patsy Swank Interview with John Ardoin, 1978</ref><ref name="Callas, A Documentary 1978"/></blockquote>

==== Estate ====
[[File:Maria Callas by Karuvits.jpg|upright|thumb|''Portrait of Callas'' (2004), by Oleg Karuvits]]
According to several Callas biographers, Vasso Devetzi, a Greek pianist near the same age as Callas, insinuated herself into Callas's trust during her last years and acted virtually as her agent.<ref>{{cite book|last=Galatopoulos|first=Stelios|year=1998|title=Maria Callas, Sacred Monster|location=New York|publisher=Simon and Schuster|isbn=978-0-684-85985-9|url=https://archive.org/details/mariacallassacre00gala}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.classicalsource.com/db_control/db_news.php?id=209|title=Franco Zeffirelli Says Maria Callas Was Poisoned @www.classicalsource.com|website=www.classicalsource.com|access-date=July 5, 2018|archive-date=July 6, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180706022259/http://www.classicalsource.com/db_control/db_news.php?id=209|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OIQOMZPshGkC&pg=PA310 | title=Maria Callas: An Intimate Biography| isbn=978-0-312-31002-8| last1=Edwards| first1=Anne| date=February 27, 2003| publisher=St. Martin's Press}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/mystery-of-the-callas-millions-resurfaces-as-jewels-are-put-up-for-auction-7907004.html|title=Mystery of the Callas millions resurfaces as jewels are put up for|date=October 26, 2004|website=The Independent}}</ref> This claim is corroborated by Callas' sister Yakinthi "Jackie" in her 1990 book ''Sisters'', wherein she asserts that Devetzi conned Maria out of control of half of her estate while promising to establish the Maria Callas Foundation to provide scholarships for young singers; after hundreds of thousands of dollars had allegedly vanished, Devetzi finally did establish the foundation.<ref>{{cite book | last=Callas | first=Jackie | title=Sisters: A Revealing Portrait of the World's Most Famous Diva | publisher=St. Martin's Press | location=Gordonsville, Virginia |year=1990 | isbn=978-0-312-03934-9 }}</ref>

== Voice ==
=== The Callas sound ===
[[File:Maria Callas bezoekt de Bovema studio, 1959 - 02.jpg|thumb|Callas in the Netherlands, 1959]]
Callas's voice elicited widely diverging reactions.<ref name="artandlife" />{{page needed|date=May 2021}}<ref name="ardoin">{{cite book|last=Ardoin|first=John|title=The Callas Legacy|publisher=Scribner and Sons|location=Old Tappan, New Jersey|year=1991|isbn=978-0-684-19306-9|url=https://archive.org/details/callaslegacyc00ardo}}</ref>{{page needed|date=May 2021}} [[Walter Legge]] stated that Callas possessed that most essential ingredient for a great singer: an instantly recognizable voice.<ref name="schwarzkopf">{{cite book|last=Schwarzkopf|first=Elisabeth|author-link=Elisabeth Schwarzkopf|title=On and Off the Record: A Memoir of Walter Legge|publisher=Charles Scribner's Sons|location=New York|year=1982|isbn=978-0-684-17451-8}}</ref>

During "The Callas Debate", Italian critic [[Rodolfo Celletti]] stated, "The timbre of Callas' voice, considered purely as sound, was essentially ugly: it was a thick sound, which gave the impression of dryness, of aridity. It lacked those elements which, in a singer's jargon, are described as velvet and varnish&nbsp;... yet I really believe that part of her appeal was precisely due to this fact. Why? Because for all its natural lack of varnish, velvet and richness, this voice could acquire such distinctive colours and timbres as to be unforgettable."<ref name="debate">{{cite journal|title=The Callas Debate|journal=Opera|date=September–October 1970}}</ref> However, in his review of Callas's 1951 live recording of ''[[I vespri siciliani]]'', Ira Siff writes, "Accepted wisdom tells us that Callas possessed, even early on, a flawed voice, unattractive by conventional standards—an instrument that signaled from the beginning vocal problems to come. Yet listen to her entrance in this performance and one encounters a rich, spinning sound, ravishing by any standard, capable of delicate dynamic nuance. High notes are free of wobble, chest tones unforced, and the middle register displays none of the 'bottled' quality that became more and more pronounced as Callas matured."<ref name="ReferenceA">Siff, Ira, "''I Vespri Siciliani'': Verdi:, Online edition of ''[[Opera News]]'', March 2008.</ref>

[[Nicola Rossi-Lemeni]] relates that Callas's mentor Serafin used to refer to her as ''Una grande vociaccia''; he continues, "''Vociaccia'' is a little bit pejorative—it means an ugly voice—but ''grande'' means a big voice, a great voice. A great ugly voice, in a way."<ref>''Callas'' by [[Tony Palmer (director)|Tony Palmer]], 30th Anniversary Edition, (DVD). Timestamps 16:42–17:05 in [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKWUOvXYJbM the official Youtube release of the film]</ref> Callas did not like the sound of her own voice; in one of her last interviews, answering whether or not she was able to listen to her own voice, she replies,
<blockquote>Yes, but I don't like it. I have to do it, but I don't like it at all because I don't like the kind of voice I have. I really hate listening to myself! The first time I listened to a recording of my singing was when we were recording ''San Giovanni Battista'' by [[Alessandro Stradella|Stradella]] in a church in [[Perugia]] in 1949. They made me listen to the tape and I cried my eyes out. I wanted to stop everything, to give up singing&nbsp;... Also now even though I don't like my voice, I've become able to accept it and to be detached and objective about it so I can say, "Oh, that was really well sung," or "It was nearly perfect."<ref>French Radio interview with journalist Philippe Caloni on French Radio; ''Maria Callas' Last Interview Part 1 of 8'', translated by Marie Gilles, available at {{YouTube|wCyVOGIMNVU}}</ref></blockquote>

[[Carlo Maria Giulini]] has described the appeal of Callas's voice:
<blockquote>It is very difficult to speak of the voice of Callas. Her voice was a very special instrument. Something happens sometimes with string instruments—violin, viola, cello—where the first moment you listen to the sound of this instrument, the first feeling is a bit strange sometimes. But after just a few minutes, when you get used to, when you become friends with this kind of sound, then the sound becomes a magical quality. This was Callas.<ref name="documentary"/></blockquote>

=== Vocal category ===
Callas's voice has been difficult to place in the modern vocal classification or [[Fach]] system, especially as in her prime her repertoire contained the heaviest dramatic soprano roles as well as roles usually undertaken by the highest, lightest and most agile coloratura sopranos. Regarding this versatility, Serafin said, "This woman can sing anything written for the female voice".<ref name="stassinopoulos"/> Michael Scott argues that Callas's voice was a natural high [[soprano]],<ref name="scott"/> and going by evidence of Callas's early recordings [[Rosa Ponselle]] likewise felt that "At that stage of its development, her voice was a pure but sizable [[dramatic coloratura]]—that is to say, a sizable coloratura voice with dramatic capabilities, not the other way around."<ref>Ponselle, Rosa, ''Ponselle, a Singer's Life'', Doubleday, Garden City, 1982</ref> On the other hand, music critic [[John Ardoin]] has argued that Callas was the reincarnation of the 19th-century ''[[soprano sfogato]]'' or "unlimited soprano", a throwback to [[Maria Malibran]] and [[Giuditta Pasta]], for whom many of the famous bel canto operas were written. He avers that like Pasta and Malibran, Callas was a natural mezzo-soprano whose range was extended through training and willpower, resulting in a voice which "lacked the homogeneous color and evenness of scale once so prized in singing. There were unruly sections of their voices never fully under control. Many who heard Pasta, for example, remarked that her uppermost notes seemed produced by [[ventriloquism]], a charge which would later be made against Callas".{{sfn|Ardoin|1974|p=5}} Ardoin points to the writings of [[Henry Chorley]] about Pasta which bear an uncanny resemblance to descriptions of Callas:
<blockquote>There was a portion of the scale which differed from the rest in quality and remained to the last 'under a veil.'&nbsp;... out of these uncouth materials she had to compose her instrument and then to give it flexibility. Her studies to acquire execution must have been tremendous; but the volubility and brilliancy, when acquired, gained a character of their own&nbsp;... There were a breadth, an expressiveness in her roulades, an evenness and solidity in her [[Trill (music)|shake]], which imparted to every passage a significance totally beyond the reach of lighter and more spontaneous singers&nbsp;... The best of her audience were held in thrall, without being able to analyze what made up the spell, what produced the effect—as soon as she opened her lips.<ref name="artandlife" />{{page needed|date=May 2021}}</blockquote>

Callas appears to have been in agreement not only with Ardoin's assertions that she started as a natural mezzo-soprano, but also saw the similarities between herself and Pasta and Malibran. In 1957, she described her early voice: "The timbre was dark, almost black—when I think of it, I think of thick molasses", and in 1968 she added, "They say I was not a true soprano, I was rather toward a mezzo".{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|p={{Page needed|date=September 2018}}}} Regarding her ability to sing the heaviest as well as the lightest roles, she told James Fleetwood,
<blockquote>It's study; it's Nature. I'm doing nothing special, you know. Even ''Lucia'', ''Anna Bolena'', ''Puritani'', all these operas were created for one type of soprano, the type that sang ''Norma'', ''Fidelio'', which was Malibran of course. And a funny coincidence last year, I was singing ''Anna Bolena'' and ''Sonnambula'', same months and the same distance of time as Giuditta Pasta had sung in the nineteenth century&nbsp;... So I'm really not doing anything extraordinary. You wouldn't ask a pianist not to be able to play everything; he has to. This is Nature and also because I had a wonderful teacher, the old kind of teaching methods&nbsp;... I was a very heavy voice, that is my nature, a dark voice shall we call it, and I was always kept on the light side. She always trained me to keep my voice limber.<ref>Interview with James Fleetwood, March 13 and 27, 1958, New York, release on ''The Callas Edition'', CED 100343, 1998.</ref></blockquote>

=== Vocal size and range ===
[[File:Callas's Vocal Range.svg|thumb|upright=1.6|Callas's range in performance (highest and lowest notes both shown in red): from F-sharp below the Middle C (green) to E-natural above the High C (blue)]]
Regarding the sheer size of Callas's instrument, Rodolfo Celletti says, "Her voice was penetrating. The volume as such was average: neither small nor powerful. But the penetration, allied to this incisive quality (which bordered on the ugly because it frequently contained an element of harshness) ensured that her voice could be clearly heard anywhere in the auditorium."<ref name="debate"/> Celletti wrote that Callas had "a voluminous, penetrating, and dark voice" (''una voce voluminosa, squillante e di timbro scuro'').<ref>Celletti, Rodolfo. [http://belcantismo.blogspot.com/2007/08/maria-callas-nella-critica-di-rodolfo.html ''Le Grandi Voci – Dizionario Critico-Biografico dei Cantanti'']. Istituto per la collaborazione Culturale, 1964. (extract).</ref> After her first performance of Medea in 1953, the critic for ''[[Musical Courier]]'' wrote that "she displayed a vocal generosity that was scarcely believable for its amplitude and resilience."<ref name="lowe"/> In a 1982 ''[[Opera News]]'' interview with Joan Sutherland and [[Richard Bonynge]], Bonynge stated, "But before she slimmed down, I mean this was such a colossal voice. It just poured out of her, the way [[Kirsten Flagstad|Flagstad]]'s did&nbsp;.... Callas had a huge voice. When she and Stignani sang Norma, at the bottom of the range you could barely tell who was who&nbsp;... Oh it was colossal. And she took the big sound right up to the top."<ref>''[[Opera News]]'' (December 1982).{{Title missing|date=October 2018}}{{Author missing|date=October 2018}}</ref> In his book, Michael Scott makes the distinction that whereas Callas's pre-1954 voice was a "dramatic soprano with an exceptional top", after the weight loss, it became, as one Chicago critic described the voice in ''Lucia'',<ref name="lowe"/> a "huge soprano [[leggiero]]".<ref name="scott"/>

In performance, Callas's [[vocal range]] was just short of three octaves, from F-sharp (F{{sharp}}<sub>3</sub>) below middle C (C<sub>4</sub>) heard in "Arrigo! Ah parli a un core" from ''[[I vespri siciliani]]'' to E-natural (E<sub>6</sub>) above high C (C<sub>6</sub>), heard in the aria "Mercè, dilette amiche" in the final act of the same opera, as well as in [[Gioachino Rossini|Rossini]]'s ''[[Armida (Rossini)|Armida]]'' and ''[[Lakmé]]''{{'}}s Bell Song. Whether or not Callas ever sang a high F-natural in performance has been open to debate. After her June 11, 1951, concert in Florence, Rock Ferris of ''Musical Courier'' said, "Her high E's and F's are taken full voice."<ref name="lowe" /> Although no definite recording of Callas singing high Fs has surfaced, the presumed E-natural at the end of Rossini's ''Armida''—a poor-quality bootleg recording of uncertain pitch—has been referred to as a high F by Italian musicologists and critics Eugenio Gara and [[Rodolfo Celletti]].<ref name="debate" /> Callas expert Dr. Robert Seletsky, however, stated that since the finale of ''Armida'' is in the key of E, the final note could not have been an F, as it would have been dissonant. Author Eve Ruggieri has referred to the penultimate note in "Mercè, dilette amiche" from the 1951 Florence performances of ''[[I vespri siciliani]]'' as a high F;<ref>{{cite book|first=Eve|last=Ruggieri|title=La Callas|publisher=Succés du livre|year=2008|page=85|isbn=978-2-7382-2307-4|language=fr}}</ref> however, this claim is refuted by [[John Ardoin]]'s review of the live recording of the performance as well as by the review of the recording in ''[[Opera News]]'', both of which refer to the note as a high E-natural.<ref name="ardoin" />{{page needed|date=May 2021}}<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

In a 1969 French television interview with Pierre Desgraupes on the program ''L'invitée du dimanche'', Francesco Siciliani speaks of Callas's voice going to high F (he also talked about her lower register extending to C<sub>3</sub>), but within the same program, Callas's teacher, Elvira de Hidalgo, speaks of the voice soaring to a high E-natural but does not mention a high F. Callas remained silent on the subject, neither confirming nor denying either claim.<ref name="Pierre Desgraupes 1968"/>

=== Vocal registers ===
Callas's voice was noted for its three distinct registers: Her low or chest register was extremely dark and powerful, and she used this part of her voice for dramatic effect, often going into this register much higher on the scale than most sopranos.<ref name="schwarzkopf"/><ref name="debate"/> Her middle register had a peculiar and highly personal sound—"part oboe, part clarinet", as [[Claudia Cassidy]] described it<ref name="artandlife" />{{page needed|date=May 2021}}—and was noted for its veiled or "bottled" sound, as if she were singing into a jug.<ref name="schwarzkopf"/> Walter Legge, husband of diva [[Elisabeth Schwarzkopf]], attributed this sound to the "extraordinary formation of her upper palate, shaped like a Gothic arch, not the Romanesque arch of the normal mouth".<ref name="schwarzkopf"/>

The upper register was ample and bright, with an impressive extension above high C, which—in contrast to the light flute-like sound of the typical coloratura, "she would attack these notes with more vehemence and power—quite differently therefore, from the very delicate, cautious, 'white' approach of the light sopranos."<ref name="debate"/> Legge adds, "Even in the most difficult [[Fioritura|fioriture]] there were no musical or technical difficulties in this part of the voice which she could not execute with astonishing, unostentatious ease. Her [[chromatic]] runs, particularly downwards, were beautifully smooth and [[staccato]]s almost unfailingly accurate, even in the trickiest intervals. There is hardly a bar in the whole range of nineteenth-century music for high soprano that seriously tested her powers."<ref name="schwarzkopf"/> And as she demonstrated in the finale of ''La sonnambula'' on the commercial EMI set and the live recording from Cologne, she was able to execute a [[Dynamics (music)#Gradual changes|diminuendo]] on the stratospheric high E-flat, which [[Michael Scott (artistic director)|Scott]] describes as "a feat unrivaled in the history of the gramophone."<ref name="scott"/>

Regarding Callas's soft singing, Celletti says, "In these soft passages, Callas seemed to use another voice altogether, because it acquired a great sweetness. Whether in her florid singing or in her ''canto spianato'', that is, in long held notes without ornamentation, her ''[[mezza voce]]'' could achieve such moving sweetness that the sound seemed to come from on high&nbsp;... I don't know, it seemed to come from the skylight of La Scala."<ref name="debate"/>

This combination of size, weight, range and agility was a source of amazement to Callas's own contemporaries. One of the choristers present at her La Scala debut in ''I vespri siciliani'' recalled, "My God! She came on stage sounding like our deepest contralto, [[Cloe Elmo]]. And before the evening was over, she took a high E-flat. And it was twice as strong as [[Toti Dal Monte]]'s!"<ref name="artandlife" />{{page needed|date=May 2021}} In the same vein, mezzo-soprano Giulietta Simionato said: "The first time we sang together was in Mexico in 1950, where she sang the top E-flat in the second-act finale of ''Aida''. I can still remember the effect of that note in the opera house—it was like a star!"<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.operanews.com/operanews/templates/content.aspx?id=11473|title=The Spirit of Giulietta|website=[[Opera News]]|access-date=April 6, 2013}}</ref> For Italian soprano Renata Tebaldi, "the most fantastic thing was the possibility for her to sing the soprano coloratura with this big voice! This was something really special. Fantastic absolutely!"<ref name="documentary"/>

Callas's vocal registers, however, were not seamlessly joined; Walter Legge writes, "Unfortunately, it was only in quick music, particularly descending scales, that she completely mastered the art of joining the three almost incompatible voices into one unified whole, but until about 1960, she disguised those audible gear changes with cunning skill."<ref name="schwarzkopf"/> Rodolfo Celletti states,
<blockquote>In certain areas of her range her voice also possessed a guttural quality. This would occur in the most delicate and troublesome areas of a soprano's voice—for instance where the lower and middle registers merge, between G and A. I would go so far as to say that here her voice had such resonances as to make one think at times of a ventriloquist&nbsp;... or else the voice could sound as though it were resonating in a rubber tube. There was another troublesome spot&nbsp;... between the middle and upper registers. Here, too, around the treble F and G, there was often something in the sound itself which was not quite right, as though the voice were not functioning properly.<ref name="debate"/></blockquote>

As to whether these troublesome spots were due to the nature of the voice or to technical deficiencies, Celletti says: "Even if, when passing from one register to another, Callas produced an unpleasant sound, the technique she used for these transitions was perfect."<ref name="debate"/> Musicologist and critic Fedele D'Amico adds, "Callas' 'faults' were in the voice and not in the singer; they are so to speak, faults of departure but not of arrival. This is precisely Celletti's distinction between the natural quality of the voice and the technique."<ref name="debate"/> In 2005, [[Ewa Podleś]] said of Callas, "Maybe she had three voices, maybe she had three ranges, I don't know—I am a professional singer. Nothing disturbed me, nothing! I bought everything that she offered me. Why? Because all of her voices, her registers, she used how they should be used—just to tell us something!"<ref name="whitson"/>

Eugenio Gara states, "Much has been said about her voice, and no doubt the discussion will continue. Certainly no one could in honesty deny the harsh or "squashed" sounds, nor the wobble on the very high notes. These and others were precisely the accusations made at the time against Pasta and Malibran, two geniuses of song (as they were then called), sublime, yet imperfect. Both were brought to trial in their day.&nbsp;... Yet few singers have made history in the annals of opera as these two did."<ref name="debate" />

== Artistry ==
Callas's own thoughts regarding music and singing can be found [[wikiquote:Special:Search/Maria Callas|at Wikiquote]].

=== The musician ===
[[File:Visconti Callas 1957.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|Callas getting ready in company of [[Luchino Visconti]] in Milan, 1957]]
Adored by many opera enthusiasts, Callas was a controversial artist. Although Callas was the great singer often dismissed simply as an actress,<ref name="mordden">{{cite book|last=Mordden|first=Ethan|author-link=Ethan Mordden|title=Demented: The World of the Opera Diva|publisher=Simon & Schuster|location=New York|year=1984|isbn=978-0-671-66800-6|url=https://archive.org/details/dementedworldoft00mord}}</ref> Callas considered herself foremost a musician, that is, the first instrument of the orchestra."<ref name="harewoodparis"/> [[Grace Bumbry]] has stated, "If I followed the musical score when [Callas] was singing, I would see every tempo marking, every dynamic marking, everything being adhered to, and at the same time, it was not antiseptic; it was something that was very beautiful and moving."<ref>''Maria Callas&nbsp;– Living and Dying for Art and Love'', TDK DVD Video, Released March 22, 2005</ref> [[Victor de Sabata]] confided to Walter Legge {{when|date=April 2018}}<!--Legge doesn't say. All he says is that "VDS once told me;" most likely it was during the recording of the first Tosca for EMI-->, "If the public could understand, as we do, how deeply and utterly musical Callas is, they would be stunned",<ref name="schwarzkopf"/> and Serafin assessed Callas's musicality as "extraordinary, almost frightening."<ref>[[Tullio Serafin|Serafin, Tullio]], "A triptych of Singers," ''Opera Annual'', No. 8, 1962</ref> Callas possessed an innate architectural sense of line-proportion<ref name="artandlife" />{{page needed|date=May 2021}} and an uncanny feel for timing and for what one of Callas’s colleagues described as "a sense of the rhythm within the rhythm".{{sfn|Petsalis-Diomidis|2001|p={{Page needed|date=September 2018}}}}

Regarding Callas's technical prowess, Celletti says, "We must not forget that she could tackle the whole gamut of ornamentation: staccato, trills, half-trills, [[gruppetto|gruppetti]], [[Musical scale|scales]], etc."<ref name="debate"/> D'Amico adds, "The essential virtue of Callas' technique consists of supreme mastery of an extraordinarily rich range of tone colour (that is, the fusion of dynamic range and timbre). And such mastery means total freedom of choice in its use: not being a slave to one's abilities, but rather, being able to use them at will as a means to an end."<ref name="debate"/> While reviewing the many recorded versions of "perhaps Verdi's ultimate challenge", the aria "D'amor sull'ali rosee" from ''[[Il trovatore]]'', Richard Dyer writes,
<blockquote>Callas articulates all of the trills, and she binds them into the line more expressively than anyone else; they are not an ornament but a form of intensification. Part of the wonder in this performance is the [[chiaroscuro]] through her tone—the other side of not singing full-out all the way through. One of the vocal devices that create that chiaroscuro is a varying rate of [[vibrato]]; another is her [[portamento]], the way she connects the voice from note to note, phrase to phrase, lifting and gliding. This is never a sloppy swoop, because its intention is as musically precise as it is in great string playing. In this aria, Callas uses more portamento, and in greater variety, than any other singer&nbsp;... Callas is not creating "effects", as even her greatest rivals do. She sees the aria as a whole, "as if in an aerial view", as [[Sviatoslav Richter]]'s teacher observed of his most famous pupil; simultaneously, she is on earth, standing in the courtyard of the palace of Aliaferia, floating her voice to the tower where her lover lies imprisoned.<ref>Dyer, Richard, "The Sopranos", ''[[Opera News]]'', March 2001.</ref></blockquote>

In addition to her musical skills, Callas had a particular gift for language and the use of language in music.<ref name="schwarzkopf"/> In recitatives, she always knew which word to emphasize and which syllable in that word to bring out.<ref name="artandlife" />{{page needed|date=May 2021}} Michael Scott notes, "If we listen attentively, we note how her perfect [[legato]] enables her to suggest by musical means even the exclamation marks and commas of the text."<ref name="scott" /> Technically, not only did she have the capacity to perform the most difficult florid music effortlessly, but also she had the ability to use each ornament as an expressive device rather than for mere fireworks.<ref name="whitson">{{cite journal | last=Whitson | first=James C. | title=The Callas Legacy|journal=[[Opera News]]|date=October 2005 }}</ref> Soprano [[Martina Arroyo]] states, "What interested me most was how she gave the runs and the cadenzas words. That always floored me. I always felt I heard her saying something—it was never just singing notes. That alone is an art."<ref name="whitson" /> Walter Legge states that,
<blockquote>Most admirable of all her qualities, however, were her taste, elegance and deeply musical use of ornamentation in all its forms and complications, the weighting and length of every [[appoggiatura]], the smooth incorporation of the turn in melodic lines, the accuracy and pacing of her trills, the seemingly inevitable timing of her portamentos, varying their curve with enchanting grace and meaning. There were innumerable exquisite felicities—minuscule portamentos from one note to its nearest neighbor, or over widespread intervals—and changes of color that were pure magic. In these aspects of bel canto she was supreme mistress of that art.<ref name="schwarzkopf" /></blockquote>

=== The actress ===
[[File:Maria Callas as Guilia.jpg|thumb|Callas as Giulia in the Opera "La Vestale", by Gaspare Spontini, 1954]]
Regarding Callas's acting ability, vocal coach and music critic Ira Siff remarked, "When I saw the final two ''Tosca''s she did in the old [Met], I felt like I was watching the actual story on which the opera had later been based."<ref>Ira Siff, in his interview with [[Walter Taussig]], "The Associate", ''[[Opera News]]'', April 2001</ref> Callas was not, however, a realistic or [[verismo]] style actress:<ref name="scott"/> her physical acting was merely "subsidiary to the heavy ''[[Art|Kunst]]'' of developing the psychology of the roles under the supervision of the music, of singing the acting&nbsp;... Suffering, delight, humility, hubris, despair, rhapsody—all this was musically appointed, through her use of the voice flying the text upon the notes."<ref name="mordden"/> Seconding this opinion, verismo specialist soprano Augusta Oltrabella said, "Despite what everyone says, [Callas] was an actress in the expression of the music, and not vice versa."<ref name="rasponi">{{cite book|last=Rasponi|first=Lanfranco|title=The Last Prima Donnas|publisher=Limelight Editions|date=June 1985|isbn=978-0-87910-040-7}}</ref><ref>Schneider, Magnus Tessing, 'The Violettas of Patti, Muzio and Callas: Style, interpretation, and the question of legacy', from ''The Legacy of Opera: Reading Music Theatre as Experience and Performance'' (Dominic Symonds and Pamela Karantonis, eds.). Rodopi (Amsterdam), {{ISBN|978-90-420-3691-8}}, pp. 112–113 (2013).</ref>

Matthew Gurewitsch adds,
<blockquote>In fact the essence of her art was refinement. The term seems odd for a performer whose imagination and means of expression were so prodigious. She was eminently capable of the grand gesture; still, judging strictly from the evidence of her recordings, we know (and her few existing film clips confirm) that her power flowed not from excess but from unbroken concentration, unfaltering truth in the moment. It flowed also from irreproachable musicianship. People say that Callas would not hesitate to distort a vocal line for dramatic effect. In the throes of operatic passion plenty of singers snarl, growl, whine, and shriek. Callas was not one of them. She found all she needed in the notes.<ref name="ReferenceB">Gurewitsch, Matthew, "Forget the Callas Legend," ''The Atlantic Monthly'', April 1999</ref></blockquote>

Ewa Podleś likewise stated that "It's enough to hear her, I'm positive! Because she could say everything only with her voice! I can imagine everything, I can see everything in front of my eye."<ref name="whitson"/> Opera director Sandro Sequi, who witnessed many Callas performances close-up, states, "For me, she was extremely stylized and classic, yet at the same time, human—but humanity on a higher plane of existence, almost sublime. Realism was foreign to her, and that is why she was the greatest of opera singers. After all, opera is the least realistic of theater forms&nbsp;... She was wasted in verismo roles, even ''Tosca'', no matter how brilliantly she could act such roles."<ref name="artandlife" />{{page needed|date=May 2021}} Scott adds, "Early nineteenth-century opera&nbsp;... is not merely the antithesis of reality, it also requires highly stylized acting. Callas had the perfect face for it. Her big features matched its grandiloquence and spoke volumes from a distance."<ref name="scott"/>

In regard to Callas's physical acting style, [[Nicola Rescigno]] states, "Maria had a way of even transforming her body for the exigencies of a role, which is a great triumph. In ''La traviata'', everything would slope down; everything indicated sickness, fatigue, softness. Her arms would move as if they had no bones, like the great ballerinas. In ''Medea'', everything was angular. She'd never make a soft gesture; even the walk she used was like a tiger's walk."<ref name="Callas, A Documentary 1978">''Callas, A Documentary'' (1978), Extra Features, by [[John Ardoin]], Bel Canto Society DVD, BCS-D0194</ref> Sandro Sequi recalls, "She was never in a hurry. Everything was very paced, proportioned, classical, precise&nbsp;... She was extremely powerful but extremely stylized. Her gestures were not many&nbsp;... I don't think she did more than 20 gestures in a performance. But she was capable of standing 10 minutes without moving a hand or finger, compelling everyone to look at her."<ref name="artandlife" />{{page needed|date=May 2021}} Edward Downes recalled Callas watching and observing her colleagues with such intensity and concentration as to make it seem that the drama was all unfolding in her head.<ref name="downes" /> Sir Rudolf Bing similarly recalled that in ''Il trovatore'' in Chicago, "it was Callas' quiet listening, rather than [[Jussi Björling|Björling]]'s singing that made the dramatic impact&nbsp;... He didn't know what he was singing, but she knew."<ref name="bing">{{cite book|last=Bing|first=Rudolf|author-link=Rudolf Bing|title=5000 Nights at the Opera|publisher=Doubleday & Co.|location=Garden City, New York|year=1972|isbn=978-0-385-09259-3|url=https://archive.org/details/5000nightsatoper00bing}}</ref>

Callas stated that, in opera, acting must be based on the music, quoting Serafin's advice to her:
<blockquote>When one wants to find a gesture, when you want to find how to act onstage, all you have to do is listen to the music. The composer has already seen to that. If you take the trouble to really listen with your Soul and with your Ears—and I say 'Soul' and 'Ears' because the Mind must work, but not too much also—you will find every gesture there.<ref name="harewoodlondon" /></blockquote>

=== The artist ===
[[File:Maria Callas 1959 Amsterdam.jpg|thumb|upright|Callas acknowledges applause in 1959 at the Royal [[Concertgebouw, Amsterdam|Concertgebouw]] in Amsterdam]]
Callas's most distinguishing quality was her ability to breathe life into the characters she portrayed,<ref name="artandlife" />{{page needed|date=May 2021}} or in the words of Matthew Gurewitsch, "Most mysterious among her many gifts, Callas had the genius to translate the minute particulars of a life into tone of voice."<ref name="ReferenceB"/> Italian critic Eugenio Gara adds:

<blockquote>Her secret is in her ability to transfer to the musical plane the suffering of the character she plays, the nostalgic longing for lost happiness, the anxious fluctuation between hope and despair, between pride and supplication, between irony and generosity, which in the end dissolve into a superhuman inner pain. The most diverse and opposite of sentiments, cruel deceptions, ambitious desires, burning tenderness, grievous sacrifices, all the torments of the heart, acquire in her singing that mysterious truth, I would like to say, that psychological sonority, which is the primary attraction of opera.<ref name="debate" /></blockquote>

[[Ethan Mordden]] writes, "It was a flawed voice. But then Callas sought to capture in her singing not just beauty but a whole humanity, and within her system, the flaws feed the feeling, the sour plangency and the strident defiance becoming aspects of the canto. They were literally defects of her voice; she bent them into advantages of her singing."<ref name="mordden" /> Giulini believes, "If melodrama is the ideal unity of the trilogy of words, music, and action, it is impossible to imagine an artist in whom these three elements were more together than Callas."<ref name="scott" /> He recalls that during Callas's performances of ''La traviata'', "reality was onstage. What stood behind me, the audience, auditorium, [[La Scala]] itself, seemed artifice. Only that which transpired on stage was truth, life itself."<ref name="artandlife" />{{page needed|date=May 2021}} Sir [[Rudolf Bing]] expressed similar sentiments:<blockquote>Once one heard and saw Maria Callas—one can't really distinguish it—in a part, it was very hard to enjoy any other artist, no matter how great, afterwards, because she imbued every part she sang and acted with such incredible personality and life. One move of her hand was more than another artist could do in a whole act.<ref name="documentary"/></blockquote>

To [[Antonino Votto]], Callas was:<blockquote>The last great artist. When you think this woman was nearly blind,<!-- mentioned by Trivella in the Education section; without glasses, the world was a blurr and she could not see the conductor or the audience. During dimly lit scenes in Sonnambula, Visconti had to put a perfumed handkerchief on the sofa and she would follow the scent to the spot. And in the CG Toscas, Gobbi (the dead Scarpia) would whisper "go left" "Go right" to her --> and often sang standing a good 150 feet from the podium. But her sensitivity! Even if she could not see, she sensed the music and always came in exactly with my downbeat. When we rehearsed, she was so precise, already note-perfect&nbsp;... She was not just a singer, but a complete artist. It's foolish to discuss her as a voice. She must be viewed totally—as a complex of music, drama, movement. There is no one like her today. She was an esthetic phenomenon.<ref name="artandlife" />{{page needed|date=May 2021}}</blockquote>

== In popular culture ==
* [[Terrence McNally]]'s play ''[[Master Class]]'', which premiered in 1995, presents Callas as a glamorous, commanding, larger-than-life, caustic, and funny pedagogue holding a voice master class. Alternately dismayed and impressed by the students who parade before her, she retreats into recollections about the glories of her own life and career, culminating in a monologue about sacrifice taken for art. Several selections of Callas actually singing are played during the recollections.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Zinman |first1=Toby Silverman |title=Terrence McNally: A Casebook |date=2014 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-135-59598-2 |pages=165 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ovVRAwAAQBAJ&q=%22Terrence+McNally%22+%22Master+Class%22+callas&pg=PA165 |access-date=June 8, 2019 |language=en}}</ref> Callas was portrayed on [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]] by [[Zoe Caldwell]] (1995),<ref>{{Cite web |last=Gerard |first=Jeremy |date=1995-11-06 |title=Master Class |url=https://variety.com/1995/legit/reviews/master-class-6-1200443943/ |access-date=2023-02-05 |website=Variety |language=en-US}}</ref> [[Patti LuPone]] (1996),<ref>{{Cite news |last=Canby |first=Vincent |date=1996-07-26 |title=Theater Review; Patti LuPone's Arrival Changes the Effect Of McNally's Script |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1996/07/26/theater/theater-review-patti-lupone-s-arrival-changes-the-effect-of-mcnally-s-script.html |access-date=2023-02-05 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> [[Dixie Carter]] (1997),<ref>{{Cite news |last=Marks |first=Peter |date=1997-03-01 |title=A New Callas More Wounded Than Wounding |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1997/03/01/theater/a-new-callas-more-wounded-than-wounding.html |access-date=2023-02-05 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> and [[Tyne Daly]] (2011).<ref>{{Cite news |last=Brantley |first=Ben |date=2011-07-08 |title=Enough About You; Let's Revisit My Glory Days |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/08/theater/reviews/master-class-with-tyne-daly-at-the-friedman-review.html |access-date=2023-02-05 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> Caldwell won a [[Tony Awards|Tony Award]] for her performance. [[Faye Dunaway]] starred in the 1996 national tour.
* In 2024, American actress [[Angelina Jolie]] portrayed Callas in the biopic, ''[[Maria (2024 film)|Maria]],'' directed by [[Pablo Larraín]], which shows Callas in the 1970s during her decline.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Moreau |first=Jordan |date=2022-10-21 |title=Angelina Jolie to Star in 'Spencer' Director Pablo Larraín's Next Film About Opera Singer Maria Callas |url=https://variety.com/2022/film/news/angelina-jolie-pablo-larrain-maria-callas-1235411003/ |access-date=2023-02-04 |website=Variety |language=en-US}}</ref> The film premiered at the [[81st Venice International Film Festival]] where Jolie received a "rapturous" eight-minute standing ovation towards the end of the screening.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-07-09 |title=Biennale Cinema 2024 {{!}} Maria |url=https://www.labiennale.org/en/cinema/2024/venezia-81-competition/maria |access-date=2024-07-23 |website=La Biennale di Venezia |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Ritman |first=Ramin Setoodeh, Alex |date=2024-08-29 |title=Angelina Jolie Weeps Through Rapturous 8-Minute Venice Standing Ovation for 'Maria,' Launching Oscar Buzz |url=https://variety.com/2024/film/festivals/angelina-jolie-weeps-maria-venice-standing-ovation-pablo-larrain-oscar-buzz-1236115537/ |access-date=2024-09-06 |website=Variety |language=en-US}}</ref>
* In 1997, she was featured as one of 18 significant historical figures in [[Apple Inc.]]'s [[Think different]] advertisement.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Olson |first1=Lester C. |last2=Finnegan |first2=Cara A. |last3=Hope |first3=Diane S. |title=Visual Rhetoric: A Reader in Communication and American Culture |date=2008 |publisher=SAGE |isbn=978-1-4129-4919-4 |pages=289 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gxR_LBkVyToC&q=apple+%22Think+different%22+callas&pg=PT315 |language=en}}</ref>
* In 2002, Franco Zeffirelli produced and directed a biopic, ''[[Callas Forever]]''. It was a fictionalized film in which Callas was played by [[Fanny Ardant]]. It depicted the last months of Callas's life, when she was seduced into the making of a movie of ''[[Carmen]]'', lip-synching to her 1964 recording of that opera.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Joe |first1=Jeongwon |title=Opera as Soundtrack |date=2016 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-08548-5 |pages=152 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Gc0oDAAAQBAJ&q=%22Franco+Zeffirelli%22+%22Callas+Forever%22&pg=PA152 |language=en}}</ref>
* In 2007, Callas was posthumously awarded the [[Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award]]. In the same year, she was voted the greatest soprano of all time by ''[[BBC Music Magazine]]''.<ref>{{cite web|title=LA Opera Off Grand and BASE Hologram present ''Callas in Concert''|url=https://www.broadwayworld.com/los-angeles/article/LA-Opera-Off-Grand-and-BASE-Hologram-present-CALLAS-IN-CONCERT-20190219|website=[[BroadwayWorld]]|access-date=June 8, 2019}}</ref>
* The 30th anniversary of the death of Maria Callas was selected as the main motif for a high value euro collectors' coin: the €10 Greek [[Euro gold and silver commemorative coins (Greece)#2007 coinage|Maria Callas commemorative coin]], minted in 2007. Her image is shown in the obverse of the coin, and on the reverse the National Emblem of Greece with her signature is depicted.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kosinski |first1=Tomasz |title=Coins of Greece 1901–2014: Coins of Europe Catalog 1901–2014 |date=2014 |publisher=Tomasz Kosinski |pages=11 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1b8LBAAAQBAJ&q=%22maria+callas%22+euro+coin&pg=PA11 |language=en}}</ref>
* On December 2, 2008, on the 85th anniversary of Callas's birth, a group of Greek and Italian officials unveiled a plaque in her honor at Flower Hospital (now the Terence Cardinal Cooke Health Care Center) where she was born. Made of Carrara marble and engraved in Italy, the plaque reads, "Maria Callas was born in this hospital on December 2, 1923. These halls heard for the first time the musical notes of her voice, a voice which has conquered the world. To this great interpreter of universal language of music, with gratitude."<ref>Chan, Sewell, "Where Callas Was Born 85 Years Ago", ''The New York Times'' December 2, 2008</ref>
* In 2012, Callas was voted into ''[[Gramophone (magazine)|Gramophone]]'' magazine's Hall of Fame.<ref>{{cite web|title=Maria Callas (soprano)|url=http://www.gramophone.co.uk/HallofFame/ArtistPage/Callas|work=[[Gramophone (magazine)|Gramophone]]|access-date=April 11, 2012}}</ref>
* Asteroid [[29834 Mariacallas]] was named in her memory.<ref name="MPC-asteroid" /> The official naming citation was published by the [[Minor Planet Center]] on January 31, 2018 ({{small|[[Minor Planet Circulars|M.P.C.]] 108697}}).<ref name="MPC-Circulars-Archive" />
* In 2017, two books by Tom Volf were released: ''Maria by Callas'', punctuated with quotes in English and photos, and ''Callas Confidential''.<ref name="Bavelier2017">{{cite news |last=Bavelier |first=Ariane |date=July 7, 2017 |title=Deux livres, une exposition, un film&nbsp;... les derniers secrets de La Callas |trans-title=Two books, an exhibition, a film&nbsp;... the last secrets of La Callas |url=https://www.lefigaro.fr/musique/2017/07/07/03006-20170707ARTFIG00017-deux-livres-une-exposition-un-film-les-derniers-secrets-de-la-callas.php |url-status=live |language=fr |newspaper=[[Le Figaro]] |archive-url=https://archive.today/20231101164232/https://www.lefigaro.fr/musique/2017/07/07/03006-20170707ARTFIG00017-deux-livres-une-exposition-un-film-les-derniers-secrets-de-la-callas.php |archive-date=November 1, 2023 |access-date=November 1, 2023}}</ref> He also set up an [[exhibition]] entitled ''Maria by Callas'' held at [[La Seine Musicale]] in [[Boulogne-Billancourt]] from September 16 to December 14, 2017.<ref name="Bavelier2017"/> Also in 2017, the documentary directed by Volf ''[[Maria by Callas]]'' was released, which depicts Callas's life and work in her own words by using her interviews, letters, and performances to tell her story.<ref>{{cite news |last=Machart |first=Renaud |date=July 18, 2021 |title='Maria by Callas', sur Arte, documente le théâtre de la vie et de la scène de la diva |trans-title='Maria by Callas', on Arte, documents the theater of the diva's life and stage |url=https://www.lemonde.fr/culture/article/2021/07/18/maria-by-callas-sur-arte-documente-le-theatre-de-la-vie-et-de-la-scene-de-la-diva_6088663_3246.html |url-status=live |language=fr |newspaper=[[Le Monde]] |archive-url=https://archive.today/20231101154910/https://www.lemonde.fr/culture/article/2021/07/18/maria-by-callas-sur-arte-documente-le-theatre-de-la-vie-et-de-la-scene-de-la-diva_6088663_3246.html |archive-date=November 1, 2023 |access-date=November 1, 2023}}</ref>
* Several non-operatic singers including [[Anna Calvi]],<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.npr.org/2011/03/06/134267419/anna-calvi-a-powerful-voice-is-just-one-piece-of-her-art |title=Anna Calvi: A Powerful Voice Is Just One Piece of Her Art |publisher=[[NPR]]|date=March 6, 2011 |access-date=May 5, 2012}}</ref> [[Linda Ronstadt]],<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/1995/04/19/garden/at-lunch-with-linda-ronstadt-and-this-is-what-48-looks-like.html "And This Is What 48 Looks Like"], ''The New York Times'', April 19, 1995</ref> and [[Patti Smith]]<ref>[[Patti Smith]] in conversation with [[Kurt Andersen]] on [[Public Radio International|PRI]]'s ''[[Studio 360]]'' on December 24, 2009</ref> have mentioned Callas as a great musical influence. Opera-turned-pop singer [[Giselle Bellas]] cites Callas as an influence; the song "The Canary" from Bellas's debut album ''Not Ready to Grow Up'' was inspired by the relationship between Callas and Onassis.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://scenester.tv/giselle-new-music-video-the-canary-for-all-unrequited-lovers/|title=Giselle New Music Video – "The Canary" – For all unrequited lovers|website=scenester.tv|date=March 14, 2018|access-date=August 7, 2019|archive-date=August 7, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190807231918/https://scenester.tv/giselle-new-music-video-the-canary-for-all-unrequited-lovers/|url-status=dead}}</ref> Other popular musicians have paid tribute to Callas in their music:
*[[Enigma (German band)|Enigma]] released the instrumental "Callas Went Away" using samples of Callas's voice, on their 1990 album ''[[MCMXC a.D.]]''<ref>{{cite web |title=Review: Enigma Classic Album Selection |url=http://www.digitaljournal.com/entertainment/review-enigma-classic-album-selection/article/365747 |website=www.digitaljournal.com |access-date=June 8, 2019 |date=January 14, 2014}}</ref>
*"La diva", on [[Celine Dion]]'s 2007 French language album ''[[D'elles]]'' is about Maria Callas. The track samples the 1956 recording of ''[[La bohème]]''.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Durocher |first1=Sophie |title=Céline Dion: la diva en noir |url=https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2016/01/25/celine-dion-la-diva-en-noir |access-date=June 8, 2019 |work=Le Journal de Montréal}}</ref>
* In the 2018–2019 season, BASE Hologram Productions presented Callas in Concert in the United States, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Europe.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://chicago.suntimes.com/entertainment-and-culture/2019/6/7/18656484/maria-callas-hologram-tour-at-lyric-opera-chicago-concert|title=Maria Callas hologram tour set for Lyric Opera|last=Di Nunzio|first=Miriam|date=June 7, 2019|website=Chicago Sun-Times|access-date=August 23, 2019}}</ref>
* In 2019, Volf's book ''Maria Callas: Lettres & Mémoires'' (''Maria Callas: Letters & Memoirs'') was released, based on letters and autobiography [[essay]]s left by the singer.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Bavelier |first1=Ariane |last2=Garat |first2=Jean-Baptiste |last3=Hillériteau |first3=Thierry |last4=Puech |first4=Benjamin |date=December 10, 2019 |title=Du classique dans la hotte: notre sélection de disques, DVD et livres pour gâter les mélomanes |trans-title=Classics in the hood: our selection of records, DVDs and books to satisfy music lovers |url=https://www.lefigaro.fr/culture/du-classique-dans-la-hotte-notre-selection-de-disques-dvd-et-livres-pour-gater-les-melomanes-20191210 |url-status=live |language=fr |newspaper=[[Le Figaro]] |archive-url=https://archive.today/20231101161622/https://www.lefigaro.fr/culture/du-classique-dans-la-hotte-notre-selection-de-disques-dvd-et-livres-pour-gater-les-melomanes-20191210 |archive-date=November 1, 2023 |access-date=November 1, 2023}}</ref>
* [[Monica Bellucci]] played Callas for an evocation telling the singer's story through her own letters and words in a theater show directed by Volf, ''Maria Callas' Letters and Memoirs'', which began at the end of November 2019 at the [[Théâtre Marigny]] in Paris,<ref name="VFfr2019">{{cite magazine |date=November 27, 2019 |title=Monica Bellucci fait revivre Maria Callas |trans-title=Monica Bellucci revives Maria Callas |url=https://www.vanityfair.fr/actualites/articles/au-theatre-marigny-monica-bellucci-fait-revivre-maria-callas/78057 |url-status=live |language=fr |magazine=[[Vanity Fair (magazine)|Vanity Fair]] |archive-url=https://archive.today/20230408161351/https://www.vanityfair.fr/actualites/articles/au-theatre-marigny-monica-bellucci-fait-revivre-maria-callas/78057 |archive-date=April 8, 2023 |access-date=November 1, 2023}}</ref> continuing throughout Europe, including the [[Odeon of Herodes Atticus]],<ref>{{Cite web |last= |date=2021-09-22 |title=Μάγεψε ως Μαρία Κάλλας η Μόνικα Μπελούτσι στο Ηρώδειο (εικόνες και βίντεο) |url=https://www.kathimerini.gr/culture/561507778/magepse-os-maria-kallas-i-monika-mpeloytsi-sto-irodeio-eikones-kai-vinteo/ |access-date=2024-06-02 |website=Η ΚΑΘΗΜΕΡΙΝΗ |language=greek}}</ref> and ending in Los Angeles and New York City in January 2023 at the [[Beacon Theatre (New York City)|Beacon Theatre]].<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Carrière |first=Christophe |date=November 15, 2022 |title=Monica Bellucci: 'La Callas que j'incarne est la femme fragile que peu de gens connaissaient' |trans-title=Monica Bellucci: 'The Callas I play is the fragile woman that few people knew' |url=https://www.parismatch.com/people/monica-bellucci-la-callas-que-jincarne-est-la-femme-fragile-que-peu-de-gens-connaissaient-218684 |url-status=live |language=fr |magazine=[[Paris Match]] |archive-url=https://archive.today/20230408144206/https://www.parismatch.com/people/monica-bellucci-la-callas-que-jincarne-est-la-femme-fragile-que-peu-de-gens-connaissaient-218684 |archive-date=April 8, 2023 |access-date=November 1, 2023}}</ref><ref name="Aricò2023">{{cite magazine |last=Aricò |first=Giacomo |date=October 23, 2023 |title=Monica Bellucci e Maria Callas, storia di un'immedesimazione totale tra lettere, memorie e un abito Yves Saint Laurent |trans-title=Monica Bellucci and Maria Callas, the story of total identification between letters, memories and an Yves Saint Laurent dress |url=https://www.vogue.it/news/article/monica-bellucci-maria-callas-lettere-e-memorie |url-status=live |language=it |magazine=[[Vogue Italia]] |archive-url=https://archive.today/20231101155127/https://www.vogue.it/news/article/monica-bellucci-maria-callas-lettere-e-memorie |archive-date=November 1, 2023 |access-date=November 1, 2023}}</ref> In the [[Play (theatre)|play]], Bellucci wore two [[Yves Saint Laurent (fashion house)|Yves Saint Laurent]] dresses that had belonged to Callas.<ref name="VFfr2019"/><ref name="Aricò2023"/>
* In 2021, the first annual Maria Callas Monaco Gala & Award, organized under the High Patronage of HSH [[Albert II, Prince of Monaco]], was held at the [[Hôtel de Paris]] in [[Monte Carlo]].<ref>{{cite news |last=Lemonia |first=Maria |date=May 16, 2021 |script-title=el:Μαρία Κάλλας: Monaco Gala & Awards – Το πριγκιπάτο τιμά τη μεγάλη ντίβα |trans-title=Maria Callas: Monaco Gala & Awards – The principality honors the great diva |url=https://www.protothema.gr/gala/article/1124332/maria-kallas-monaco-gala-awards-to-prigipato-tima-ti-megali-diva/ |url-status=live |language=el |newspaper=[[Proto Thema]] |archive-url=https://archive.today/20231101174823/https://www.protothema.gr/gala/article/1124332/maria-kallas-monaco-gala-awards-to-prigipato-tima-ti-megali-diva/ |archive-date=November 1, 2023 |access-date=November 1, 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine |date=April 25, 2021 |title=The Maria Callas Monaco Gala & Awards 2021 Grand Event is coming closer |url=https://www.hellomonaco.com/news/latest-news/the-maria-callas-monaco-gala-awards-2021-grand-event-is-coming-closer/ |url-status=live |magazine=HelloMonaco Magazine |archive-url=https://archive.today/20231101175404/https://www.hellomonaco.com/news/latest-news/the-maria-callas-monaco-gala-awards-2021-grand-event-is-coming-closer/ |archive-date=November 1, 2023 |access-date=November 1, 2023}}</ref>
* In October 2021, a {{convert|1.8|m|ft|adj=mid|-tall}} statue of Callas at the base of the Acropolis in Athens, created by [[Aphrodite Liti]], was "ridiculed in cartoons and generated a social media storm".<ref>{{cite news |last1=Smith |first1=Helena |title=Gandhi in heels? Maria Callas statue hits the wrong note |url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/oct/17/gandhi-in-heels-maria-callas-statue-hits-the-wrong-note |access-date=October 17, 2021 |work=The Guardian |date=October 17, 2021}}</ref>
* In November 2021, Spanish actress Mabel del Pozo played Maria Callas in the successful play ''Maria Callas, sfogato'', written by [[:es:Pedro_Víllora|Pedro Víllora]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=EFE |first=Agencia |title='María Callas. Sfogato' triunfa en el Garnacha de Haro |url=https://nuevecuatrouno.com/2022/12/17/cultura-teatro-maria-callas-sfogato-triunfa-certamen-nacional-garnacha-rioja-haro/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240523001331/https://nuevecuatrouno.com/2022/12/17/cultura-teatro-maria-callas-sfogato-triunfa-certamen-nacional-garnacha-rioja-haro/ |archive-date=May 23, 2024 |access-date=2025-02-09 |website=nuevecuatrouno.com |language=es |url-status=live }}</ref>
* In June 2024, Callas was inducted posthumously into the [[Women Songwriters Hall of Fame]].<ref>{{cite news |last1=Baldwin-Harris |first1=Angel |title=Martha Munizzi Inducted into Women Songwriters Hall of Fame|url=https://www.eewmagazineonline.com/the-gospel-beat/2024/6/11/martha-munizzi-inducted-into-women-songwriters-hall-of-fame|access-date=December 10, 2024 |work=EEW Magazine|date=June 11, 2024}}</ref>
* In 2025, the [[European Central Bank]] announced that Callas had been selected to appear on the obverse of [[5 euro note|5 euro banknotes]] in a [[Euro banknotes#New series and plans for a redesign|future redesign]], were the theme "European culture" to be selected over "Rivers and birds".<ref>{{Cite press release|url=https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/pr/date/2025/html/ecb.pr250131~611055a567.en.html|title=ECB selects motifs for future euro banknotes|date=31 January 2025|publisher=[[European Central Bank]]|access-date=31 January 2025}}</ref>

==Repertoire==
Callas's stage repertoire included the following roles:<ref>{{cite web |url=http://hamilton.francocorelli.nl/mc/c7.pdf |title=Maria Callas repertoire and performance history |publisher=FrankHamilton.org |first=Frank |last=Hamilton |date=2009 |access-date=March 8, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150413095544/http://hamilton.francocorelli.nl/mc/c7.pdf |archive-date=April 13, 2015 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
{| class="wikitable sortable"
!Date (debut)
!Composer
!Opera
!Role(s)
!Location
!Notes
|-
|1942-04-22
|[[Eugen d'Albert]]
|''[[Tiefland (opera)|Tiefland]]'' (in Greek)
|Marta
|[[Greek National Opera|Olympia Theatre]], Athens
|
|-
|1944-08-14
|[[Ludwig van Beethoven]]
|''[[Fidelio]]'' (in Greek)
|Leonore
|[[Odeon of Herodes Atticus]], Athens
|
|-
|1948-11-30
|[[Vincenzo Bellini]]
|''[[Norma (opera)|Norma]]''
|Norma
|[[Teatro Comunale Florence]]
|
|-
|1958-05-19
|[[Vincenzo Bellini]]
|''[[Il pirata]]''
|Imogene
|[[Teatro alla Scala]], Milan
|
|-
|1949-01-19
|[[Vincenzo Bellini]]
|''[[I puritani]]''
|Elvira
|[[La Fenice]], Venice
|
|-
|1955-03-05
|[[Vincenzo Bellini]]
|''[[La sonnambula]]''
|Amina
|[[Teatro alla Scala]], Milan
|
|-
|1964-07-05
|[[Georges Bizet]]
|''[[Carmen]]''
|Carmen
|[[Salle Wagram]], Paris
|Recording [[EMI]]
|-
|1954-07-15
|[[Arrigo Boito]]
|''[[Mefistofele]]''
|Margherita
|[[Verona Arena]]
|
|-
|1953-05-07
|[[Luigi Cherubini]]
|''[[Médée (Cherubini)|Medea]]''
|Medea
|[[Teatro Comunale Florence]]
|
|-
|1957-04-14
|[[Gaetano Donizetti]]
|''[[Anna Bolena]]''
|Anna Bolena
|[[Teatro alla Scala]], Milan
|
|-
|1952-06-10
|[[Gaetano Donizetti]]
|''[[Lucia di Lammermoor]]''
|Lucia di Lammermoor
|[[Palacio de Bellas Artes]], Mexico City
|
|-
|1960-12-07
|[[Gaetano Donizetti]]
|''[[Poliuto]]''
|Paolina
|[[Teatro alla Scala]], Milan
|
|-
|1955-01-08
|[[Umberto Giordano]]
|''[[Andrea Chénier]]''
|Maddalena di Coigny
|[[Teatro alla Scala]], Milan
|
|-
|1956-05-21
|[[Umberto Giordano]]
|''[[Fedora (opera)|Fedora]]''
|Fedora
|[[Teatro alla Scala]], Milan
|
|-
|1954-04-04
|[[Christoph Willibald Gluck]]
|''[[Alceste (Gluck)|Alceste]]''
|Alceste
|[[Teatro alla Scala]], Milan
|
|-
|1957-06-01
|[[Christoph Willibald Gluck]]
|''[[Iphigénie en Tauride]]''
|Iphigénie
|[[Teatro alla Scala]], Milan
|
|-
|1951-06-09
|[[Joseph Haydn]]
|''[[L'anima del filosofo|Orfeo ed Euridice]]''
|Euridice
|[[Teatro della Pergola]], Florence
|
|-
|1943-02-19
|[[Manolis Kalomiris]]
|''O Protomastoras''
|Singer in the intermezzo
|[[Odeon of Herodes Atticus]], Athens
|
|-
|1944-07-30
|[[Manolis Kalomiris]]
|''O Protomastoras''
|Smarágda
|[[Odeon of Herodes Atticus]], Athens
|
|-
|1954-06-12
|[[Ruggero Leoncavallo]]
|''[[Pagliacci]]''
|Nedda
|[[Teatro alla Scala]], Milan
|Recording [[EMI]]
|-
|1939-04-02
|[[Pietro Mascagni]]
|''[[Cavalleria rusticana]]''
|Santuzza
|[[Greek National Opera|Olympia Theatre]], Athens
|
|-
|1945-09-05
|[[Carl Millöcker]]
|''[[Der Bettelstudent]]'' (in Greek)
|Laura
|Alexandras Avenue Theater, Athens
|
|-
|1952-04-02
|[[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart]]
|''[[Die Entführung aus dem Serail]]'' (in Italian)
|Konstanze
|[[Teatro alla Scala]], Milan
|
|-
|1947-08-02
|[[Amilcare Ponchielli]]
|''[[La Gioconda (opera)|La Gioconda]]''
|La Gioconda
|[[Verona Arena]]
|
|-
|1955-11-11
|[[Giacomo Puccini]]
|''[[Madama Butterfly]]''
|Cio-cio-san
|[[Civic Opera House]], Chicago
|
|-
|1957-07-18
|[[Giacomo Puccini]]
|''[[Manon Lescaut (Puccini)|Manon Lescaut]]''
|Manon Lescaut
|[[Teatro alla Scala]], Milan
|Recording [[EMI]]
|-
|1940-06-16
|[[Giacomo Puccini]]
|''[[Suor Angelica]]''
|Suor Angelica
|[[Athens Conservatoire]]
|
|-
|1948-01-29
|[[Giacomo Puccini]]
|''[[Turandot]]''
|Turandot
|[[La Fenice]], Venice
|
|-
|1956-08-20
|[[Giacomo Puccini]]
|''[[La bohème]]''
|Mimi
|[[Teatro alla Scala]], Milan
|Recording [[EMI]]
|-
|1942-08-27
|[[Giacomo Puccini]]
|''[[Tosca]]''
|Tosca
|[[Greek National Opera|Olympia Theatre]], Athens
|
|-
|1952-04-26
|[[Gioachino Rossini]]
|''[[Armida (Rossini)|Armida]]''
|Armida
|[[Teatro Comunale Florence]]
|
|-
|1956-02-16
|[[Gioachino Rossini]]
|''[[Il barbiere di Siviglia]]''
|Rosina
|[[Teatro alla Scala]], Milan
|
|-
|1950-10-19
|[[Gioachino Rossini]]
|''[[Il turco in Italia]]''
|Donna Fiorilla
|[[Teatro Eliseo]], Rome
|
|-
|1954-12-07
|[[Gaspare Spontini]]
|''[[La vestale]]''
|Giulia
|[[Teatro alla Scala]], Milan
|
|-
|1937-01-28
|[[Arthur Sullivan]]
|''[[H.M.S. Pinafore]]''
|Ralph Rackstraw
|New York P.S. 164
|School presentation
|-
|1936
|[[Arthur Sullivan]]
|''[[The Mikado]]''
|Unknown
|New York P.S. 164
|School presentation
|-
|1941-02-15
|[[Franz von Suppé]]
|''[[Boccaccio (operetta)|Boccaccio]]'' (in Greek)
|Beatrice
|[[Greek National Opera|Olympia Theatre]], Athens
|
|-
|1948-09-18
|[[Giuseppe Verdi]]
|''[[Aida]]''
|Aida
|[[Teatro Regio (Turin)]]
|
|-
|1954-04-12
|[[Giuseppe Verdi]]
|''[[Don Carlo]]''
|Elisabetta di Valois
|[[Teatro alla Scala]], Milan
|
|-
|1948-04-17
|[[Giuseppe Verdi]]
|''[[La forza del destino]]''
|Leonora di Vargas
|[[Politeama Rossetti]], Trieste
|
|-
|1952-12-07
|[[Giuseppe Verdi]]
|''[[Macbeth (Verdi)|Macbeth]]''
|Lady Macbeth
|[[Teatro alla Scala]], Milan
|
|-
|1949-12-20
|[[Giuseppe Verdi]]
|''[[Nabucco]]''
|Abigaile
|[[Teatro San Carlo]], Naples
|
|-
|1952-06-17
|[[Giuseppe Verdi]]
|''[[Rigoletto]]''
|Gilda
|[[Palacio de Bellas Artes]], Mexico City
|
|-
|1951-01-14
|[[Giuseppe Verdi]]
|''[[La traviata]]''
|Violetta Valéry
|[[Teatro Comunale Florence]]
|
|-
|1950-06-20
|[[Giuseppe Verdi]]
|''[[Il trovatore]]''
|Leonora
|[[Palacio de Bellas Artes]], Mexico City
|
|-
|1951-05-26
|[[Giuseppe Verdi]]
|''[[I vespri siciliani]]''
|La duchessa Elena
|[[Teatro Comunale Florence]]
|
|-
|1949-02-26
|[[Richard Wagner]]
|''[[Parsifal]]'' (in Italian)
|Kundry
|[[Teatro dell'Opera]], Rome
|
|-
|1947-12-30
|[[Richard Wagner]]
|''[[Tristan und Isolde]]'' (in Italian)
|Isolde
|[[La Fenice]], Venice
|
|-
|1949-01-08
|[[Richard Wagner]]
|''[[Die Walküre]]'' (in Italian)
|Brünnhilde
|[[La Fenice]], Venice
|
|-
|}

==Notable recordings==
{{more citations needed section|date=June 2019}}
All recordings are in mono unless otherwise indicated. Live performances are typically available on multiple labels. In 2014, [[Warner Classics]] (formerly [[EMI Classics]]) released the ''Maria Callas Remastered Edition'', consisting of her complete studio recordings totaling 39 albums in a boxed set remastered at [[Abbey Road Studios]] in 24-bit/96&nbsp;kHz digital sound from original master tapes.

{{ external media | float = center|width=230px |audio1 = [https://archive.org/details/FridayNightAtTheOpera-22610laGioconda Callas performing] [[Amilcare Ponchielli]]'s opera ''[[La Gioconda (opera)|La Gioconda]]'' with the [[RAI National Symphony Orchestra]] conducted by [[Antonino Votto]] with [[Fedora Barbieri]], [[Gianni Poggi]], [[Paolo Silveri]], [[Giulio Neri]] in 1952]}}

* Verdi, ''Nabucco'', conducted by [[Vittorio Gui]], live performance, Napoli, December 20, 1949
* Verdi, ''Il trovatore'', conducted by Guido Picco, live performance, Mexico City, June 20, 1950. In the aria "D'amor sull'ali rosee", Callas sings Verdi's original high D flat, likewise in her 1951 San Carlo performance.
* Wagner, ''Parsifal'', live performance conducted by Vittorio Gui, RAI Rome, November 20/21, 1950 (Italian)
* Verdi, ''Il trovatore'', live performance conducted by Tullio Serafin, Teatro San Carlo, Naples, January 27, 1951
* Verdi, ''[[Les vêpres siciliennes]]'', live performance conducted by [[Erich Kleiber]], Teatro Comunale Florence, May 26, 1951 (Italian)
* Verdi, ''[[Aida]]'', conducted by [[Oliviero De Fabritiis]], live performance, [[Palacio de Bellas Artes]], Mexico City, July 3, 1951
* Rossini, ''[[Armida (Rossini)|Armida]]'', live performance, Tullio Serafin, Teatro Comunale Florence, April 26, 1952
* [[Amilcare Ponchielli|Ponchielli]], ''[[La Gioconda (opera)|La Gioconda]]'', conducted by [[Antonino Votto]], studio recording for [[Cetra Records]], September 1952
* [[Vincenzo Bellini|Bellini]], ''[[Norma (opera)|Norma]]'', conducted by Vittorio Gui, live performance, [[Royal Opera House|Covent Garden]], London, November 18, 1952
* Verdi, ''[[Macbeth (Verdi)|Macbeth]]'', conducted by [[Victor de Sabata]], live performance, La Scala, Milan, December 7, 1952
* [[Gaetano Donizetti|Donizetti]], ''[[Lucia di Lammermoor]]'', conducted by Tullio Serafin, studio recording for EMI, January–February 1953
* Verdi, ''Il trovatore'', live performance conducted by Votto, La Scala February 23, 1953
* Bellini, ''[[I puritani]]'', conducted by Tullio Serafin, studio recording for EMI, March–April 1953
* [[Luigi Cherubini|Cherubini]], ''[[Médée (Cherubini)|Médée]]'', live performance conducted by Vittorio Gui, Teatro Comunale, Florence, May 7, 1953 (Italian)
* [[Pietro Mascagni|Mascagni]], ''[[Cavalleria rusticana]]'', conducted by Tullio Serafin, studio recording for EMI, August 1953
* [[Giacomo Puccini|Puccini]], [[Tosca (1953 EMI recording)|''Tosca'' (1953 EMI recording)]], conducted by Victor de Sabata, studio recording for EMI, August 1953.<ref>Paul Gruber (ed.), ''The Metropolitan Guide to Recorded Opera'', Norton, 1993, [https://books.google.com/books?id=CsGj12DnHLYC&dq=%22de+sabata%22&pg=RA2-PA415 p. 415]</ref>
* Verdi, ''[[La traviata]]'', conducted by [[Gabriele Santini]], studio recording for Cetra Records, September 1953
* Cherubini, ''Médée'', conducted by [[Leonard Bernstein]], live performance, La Scala, Milan, December 10, 1953 (Italian)
* [[Vincenzo Bellini|Bellini]], ''[[Norma (opera)|Norma]]'', conducted by Tullio Serafin, studio recording for EMI, April–May 1954
* Gluck, [[Alceste (Gluck)|''Alceste'']], [[Carlo Maria Giulini]], La Scala, Milan, April 4, 1954 (Italian)
* [[Ruggero Leoncavallo|Leoncavallo]], ''[[Pagliacci]]'', conducted by Tullio Serafin, studio recording for EMI, June 1954
* Verdi, ''[[La forza del destino]]'', conducted by Tullio Serafin, studio recording for EMI, August 1954
* [[Gioachino Rossini|Rossini]], ''[[Il turco in Italia]]'', conducted by [[Gianandrea Gavazzeni]], studio recording for EMI, August–September 1954
* ''Puccini Arias'' (excerpts from ''[[Manon Lescaut (Puccini)|Manon Lescaut]]'', ''[[La bohème]]'', ''[[Madama Butterfly]]'', ''[[Suor Angelica]]'', ''[[Gianni Schicchi]]'', ''[[Turandot]]''), conducted by Tullio Serafin, studio recording for EMI, September 1954
* ''Lyric & Coloratura Arias'' (excerpts from Rossini's ''[[Il barbiere di Siviglia]]'', Verdi's ''[[I vespri siciliani]]'', [[Giacomo Meyerbeer|Meyerbeer]]'s ''[[Dinorah]]'', [[Arrigo Boito|Boito]]'s ''[[Mefistofele]]'', [[Leo Delibes|Delibes]]'s ''[[Lakmé]]'', [[Alfredo Catalani|Catalani]]'s ''[[La Wally]]'', [[Umberto Giordano|Giordano]]'s ''[[Andrea Chénier]]'', [[Francesco Cilea|Cilea]]'s ''[[Adriana Lecouvreur]]''), conducted by Tullio Serafin, studio recording for EMI, September 1954
* [[Gaspare Spontini|Spontini]], ''[[La vestale]]'', conducted by Antonino Votto, live performance, La Scala, Milan, December 7, 1954 (Italian)
* Verdi, ''La traviata'', conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini, live performance, La Scala, Milan, May 28, 1955
* ''Callas at La Scala'' (excerpts from Cherubini's ''Médée'', Spontini's ''La vestale'', Bellini's ''[[La sonnambula]]''), conducted by Tullio Serafin, studio recording for EMI, June 1955
* Puccini, ''Madama Butterfly'', conducted by [[Herbert von Karajan]], studio recording for EMI, August 1955
* Verdi, ''Aida'', conducted by Tullio Serafin, studio recording for EMI, August 1955
* Verdi, ''[[Rigoletto]]'', conducted by Tullio Serafin, studio recording for EMI, September 1955
* Donizetti, ''Lucia di Lammermoor'', conducted by Herbert von Karajan, live performance, Berlin, September 29, 1955
* Bellini, ''Norma'', conducted by Antonino Votto, live performance, La Scala, Milan, December 7, 1955
* Verdi, ''Il trovatore'', conducted by Herbert von Karajan, studio recording for EMI, August 1956
* Puccini, ''La bohème'', conducted by Antonino Votto, studio recording for EMI, August–September 1956. Like her recordings of ''Pagliacci'', ''Manon Lescaut'' and ''Carmen,'' this was her only performance of the complete opera, as she never appeared onstage in it.
* Verdi, ''[[Un ballo in maschera]]'', conducted by Antonino Votto, studio recording for EMI, September 1956
* Rossini, ''Il barbiere di Siviglia'', conducted by [[Alceo Galliera]], studio recording for EMI in stereo, February 1957
* Bellini, ''La sonnambula'', conducted by Antonino Votto, studio recording for EMI, March 1957
* Donizetti, ''[[Anna Bolena]]'', conducted by Gianandrea Gavazzeni, live performance, La Scala, Milan, April 14, 1957
* Gluck, ''[[Iphigénie en Tauride]]'', La Scala Milan, conducted by [[Nino Sanzogno]], June 1, 1957 (Italian)
* Bellini, ''La sonnambula'', conducted by Antonino Votto, live performance, Cologne, July 4, 1957
* Puccini, ''Turandot'', conducted by Tullio Serafin, studio recording for EMI, July 1957
* Puccini, ''Manon Lescaut'', conducted by Tullio Serafin, studio recording for EMI, July 1957.
* Cherubini, ''Médée'', conducted by Tullio Serafin, studio recording for Ricordi in stereo, September 1957 (Italian)
* Verdi, ''Un ballo in maschera'', conducted by Gianandrea Gavazzeni, live performance, La Scala, Milan, December 7, 1957
* Verdi, ''La traviata'', conducted by [[Franco Ghione]], live performance, Lisbon, March 27, 1958
* Verdi, ''La traviata'', conducted by [[Nicola Rescigno]], live performance, London, June 20, 1958; considered by many critics to be Callas's most notable recording of Verdi's famous opera. Music critic [[John Ardoin]] wrote that in this performance "Callas' use of her voice to expressive ends amounts to an amalgamation of the best in previous ''Traviatas''. For even though her voice betrays her at times, her intellect and spirit have now conquered the part in a manner that outdistances all others."<ref name="ardoin"/>{{rp|p=135}}
* ''Verdi Heroines'' (excerpts from ''Nabucco'', ''[[Ernani]]'', ''Macbeth'', ''[[Don Carlo]]''), conducted by Nicola Rescigno, studio recording for EMI in stereo, September 1958
* ''Mad Scenes'' (excerpts from ''Anna Bolena'', Bellini's ''[[Il pirata]]'' and [[Ambroise Thomas]]'s ''[[Hamlet (opera)|Hamlet]]''), conducted by Nicola Rescigno, studio recording for EMI in stereo, September 1958
* Cherubini, ''Médée'' conducted by Nicola Rescigno, live performance at the Dallas Civic Opera November 6, 1958; considered to be Callas's most notable performance of Cherubini's opera. (Italian)
* Donizetti, ''Lucia di Lammermoor'', conducted by Tullio Serafin, studio recording for EMI in stereo, March 1959
* Ponchielli, ''La Gioconda'', conducted by Antonino Votto, studio recording for EMI in stereo, September 1959
* Bellini, ''Norma'', conducted by Tullio Serafin, studio recording for EMI in stereo, September 1960
* ''Callas à Paris'' (excerpts from Gluck's ''Orphée et Eurydice'', ''Alceste'', Thomas's ''[[Mignon]]'', [[Charles Gounod|Gounod]]'s ''[[Roméo et Juliette]]'', [[Georges Bizet|Bizet]]'s ''[[Carmen]]'', [[Camille Saint-Saëns|Saint-Saëns]]'s ''[[Samson and Delilah (opera)|Samson and Delilah]]'', [[Jules Massenet|Massenet]]'s ''[[Le Cid (opera)|Le Cid]]'', [[Gustave Charpentier|Charpentier]]'s ''[[Louise (opera)|Louise]]''), conducted by [[Georges Prêtre]], studio recording for EMI in stereo, March–April 1961
* ''Callas à Paris II'' (excerpts from Gluck's ''Iphigénie en Tauride'', [[Hector Berlioz|Berlioz]]'s ''[[La damnation de Faust]]'', Gounod's ''[[Faust (opera)|Faust]]'', Bizet's ''[[Les pêcheurs de perles]]'', Massenet's ''[[Manon]]'', ''[[Werther]]''), conducted by Georges Prêtre, studio recording for EMI in stereo, May 1963
* ''Mozart, Beethoven, and Weber'' (excerpts from Mozart's ''[[The Marriage of Figaro|Le nozze di Figaro]]'', ''[[Don Giovanni]]'', Weber's ''[[Oberon (Weber)|Oberon]]''), conducted by Nicola Rescigno, studio recording for EMI in stereo, December 1963 – January 1964
* ''Rossini and Donizetti Arias'' (excerpts from Rossini's ''[[La Cenerentola]]'', ''[[Semiramide]]'', ''[[William Tell (opera)|Guglielmo Tell]]'', Donizetti's ''[[L'elisir d'amore]]'', ''[[Lucrezia Borgia (opera)|Lucrezia Borgia]]'', ''[[La fille du régiment|La figlia del reggimento]]''), conducted by Nicola Rescigno, studio recording for EMI in stereo, December 1963 – April 1964
* ''Verdi Arias'' (excerpts from ''[[Aroldo]]'', ''Don Carlo'', ''[[Otello]]''), conducted by Nicola Rescigno, studio recording for EMI in stereo, December 1963 – April 1964
* Puccini, ''[[Tosca]]'', conducted by [[Carlo Felice Cillario]], live performance, London, January 24, 1964
* Bizet, ''Carmen'', conducted by Georges Prêtre, studio recording for EMI in stereo, July 1964. It is her only performance of the role, and her only performance of the complete opera; she never appeared in it onstage. The recording used the [[recitative]]s added after Bizet's death. Callas's performance caused critic [[Harold C. Schonberg]] to speculate in his book ''The Glorious Ones'' that Callas perhaps should have sung mezzo roles instead of simply soprano ones. The album would peak at No. 87 in the US.
* Puccini, ''Tosca'', conducted by Georges Prêtre, studio recording for EMI in stereo, December 1964.
* ''Verdi Arias II'' (excerpts from ''[[I Lombardi alla prima crociata|I Lombardi]]'', ''[[Attila (opera)|Attila]]'', ''[[Il corsaro]]'', ''Il trovatore'', ''I vespri siciliani'', ''Un ballo in maschera'', ''Aida''), conducted by Nicola Rescigno, studio recording for EMI in stereo, January 1964 – March 1969

== Notes and references ==
'''Notes'''
{{notelist}}
'''References'''
{{Reflist|refs=
<ref name="MPC-asteroid">{{cite web
  |title      = 29834 Mariacallas (1999 FE1)
  |website       = Minor Planet Center
  |url        = https://www.minorplanetcenter.net/db_search/show_object?object_id=29834
  |access-date = February 6, 2018}}</ref>
<ref name="MPC-Circulars-Archive">{{cite web
  |title      = MPC/MPO/MPS Archive
  |website       = Minor Planet Center
  |url        = https://www.minorplanetcenter.net/iau/ECS/MPCArchive/MPCArchive_TBL.html
  |access-date = February 6, 2018}}</ref>
}}

'''Sources'''
*{{Wikicite|ref={{SfnRef|Ardoin|1974}} |reference=
{{cite book|last1=Ardoin|first1=John|author1-link=John Ardoin|first2=Gerald|last2=Fitzgerald|title=Callas: The Art and the Life|publisher=Holt, Rinehart and Winston|location=New York|year=1974|isbn=978-0-03-011486-1}} }}
*{{cite book|last=Jellinek|first=George|author-link=George Jellinek|url=https://archive.org/details/callasportraitof0000jell|url-access=registration|title=Callas: Portrait of a Prima Donna|year=1986|orig-year=1960|edition=revised|publisher=Dover|location=New York|isbn=978-0-486-25047-2}}
* {{Cite book |last=Petsalis-Diomidis |first=Nikolaos |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781574670592 |title=The unknown Callas: the Greek years |date=2001 |publisher=[[Amadeus Press]] |isbn=978-1-57467-059-2 |series=Opera biography series |location=[[Portland, Oregon|Portland]], [[Oregon]] |pages= |url-access=registration}}. Issue 14 of opera biography series, foreword by [[George Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood|George Lascelles]].

==Further reading==
{{Library resources box}}
* Gagelmann, Rainer Benedict, [http://www.callas-club.de/ International Maria Callas Bibliography]. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180623143530/http://www.callas-club.de/ |date=June 23, 2018 }} (includes almost 1,000 publications).
* [[Philippe-Joseph Salazar|Salazar, Philippe-Joseph]], "Le Mausolée Callas", ''Liberation'', September 26, 1977.
* Seletsky, Robert E. (2004), "The Performance Practice of Maria Callas: Interpretation and Instinct", ''The Opera Quarterly'', 20/4, pp.&nbsp;587–602.
* Seletsky, Robert E., "Callas at EMI: Remastering and Perception"; "A Callas Recording Update"; "A Callas Recording Update&nbsp;... updated", ''The Opera Quarterly'' (2000), 16/2, pp.&nbsp;240–255; 21/2 (2005), pp.&nbsp;387–391; 21/3, pp.&nbsp;545–546 (2005).
* Stancioff, Nadia, ''Maria: Callas Remembered. An Intimate Portrait of the Private Callas'', New York: E. P. Dutton, 1987, {{ISBN|0-525-24565-0}}.
* Morgan, Brian, "On Her Centennial" [regarding "Callas Sings Rossini & Donizetti"], ''Uttering Lamentations'', 2023, {{ISBN|979-8859701070}}.

==External links==
{{Commons category}}
{{wikiquote}}
* [https://www.mariacallasestate.com/ Official website of the Maria Callas Estate]
* [https://www.maria-callas.com/en/ Maria Callas website] by [[Warner Music Group]]
* [https://mariacallasmuseum.gr/en/ Official website] of the [[Maria Callas Museum]]
* [https://musopen.org/music/1306/various/maria-callas-by-various-artists/ Public domain music recordings] at [[Musopen]]
* {{IMDb name|0006568|Maria Callas}}
* [https://archive.org/search?query=Maria+Callas Maria Callas on Archive.org]

{{Navboxes
|title = Awards for Maria Callas
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{{Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award}}
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